


Her Blood On His Hands

by 4everMusic



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: F/M, Kidnapping, Murica, Psychological Torture, White House Down - Freeform, actual torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-05-29 04:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4everMusic/pseuds/4everMusic
Summary: The White House gets attacked by terrorists, with the First Lady and the president held hostage. Will they make it out?





	1. Chapter 1

Light rays scattered across the rough wooden surface of the desk, spilling through freshly-washed windows that gleamed from the sun’s morning light. Cluttered as it was with paperwork and binders – along with an assortment of sleep remedies -- a dimly lit lump could be made out, betraying their state of consciousness by the slow rising and falling of their shoulders. From the nameplate displayed proudly on the exterior of the desk’s jumbled surface, underlined with gold trim befitting the station, the title of the sleeping lumps’ station could just barely be read.  Vice President of the United States Al Gore had, as was customary of many of those in his position, yet again fallen asleep at the office.

Three quick raps on the door, and a quaky, uncertain call. “Hey…Al…are you awake?”

No response came from the lump besides a brief snort.

            The raps intensified in urgency, their creator uncharacteristically showing some strain. “Al, c’mon buddy, I know last night was rough, but…” the man paused, taking a deep breath before roaring “WAKE UP!”

            Success! As the Vice President of the United States’ head shot up at the call, his skull connected with the lamp directly hanging above his body. A sharp metallic clang belied the lamp’s denseness, and the VP was sent straight into the hard mahogany he had previously been using as a bed. Reality had not yet had its way with poor Al, as the shock of his accidental impact caused the wheels of his reclining swivel chair to slip out from underneath him. As the Vice President crashed onto the floor of his office, chair wheeling away behind him, lamp swinging ominously above his head, he managed to crack open the lids of his eyes for the first time in twelve hours. “Come in” he croaked, resigned to his fate on the floor.

            George Berkley had heard everything, and not one to disobey the orders of a superior, he pushed his weight upon the heavy door and entered the Vice President’s chambers. Standing in the center of the space, he swayed from right to left, his eyes darting among the many shadows the room contained, until they came to rest upon the prone figure of his boss. If he had the courage to muster his true feelings, he might have smirked. However, not known for his boldness, the slight man of 5’4” clenched the binder in his hands tighter, sweat staining his armpits and back. A long silence reigned over the two men, suffocating in its totality. With a visible effort George opened his mouth, but no words escaped, until a curt stare from Al forced his hand.

            “You um… I see you forgot about the lamp again... we really should get that removed…I’ll call security, they should be more than capa…”

            “What…is it, Berkley…” Not a question but a statement, the Vice President let his feelings towards the Head of Internal Affairs’ interruption of his sleep be felt in full force.

            However, despite his current predicament, Al felt the strain of his subordinates’ posture, how he trembled from some unknown origin. Understanding that only something of sufficient importance could have resulted in this intrusion, Al stood up, dusting off his suit and flattening his tie against his body. With his imposing demeanor restored, Al asked the question Berkley was both expecting and dreading. “What happened?”

 

            Berkley, rather than voicing a response, simply placed the binder, marked TOP SECRET, on the desk and slid it over to Al. Catching it, Al opened its folds and started to peruse the contents….until he stopped. He blinked, once, twice, and looked up. And then back down. Seemingly at a loss for words, he continued these two actions for what seemed like an hour, in reality no longer than a moment.

“Are they real?” he questioned, wasting no time. Berkley nodded once, quickly, before remembering his position and speaking. “Yes, we’ve had them verified, it’s…its real.”

Oh god, thought Al, what has that maniac done? But he kept his personal opinion to himself. “We can’t afford this to reach the press. Not right before the election season. It’ll be a firestorm for this administration and take all of us down with it.”

“I fully agree, Mr. Vice President. I’ve already contacted those men who had been present in the briefing room. They understand not just their reputations are on the line here.”

“Good man, Berkley” Al flashed a rare smile, born from years of public service and speech craft. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

“If you don't mind me asking, to where, Mr. Vice President? After this, we have to be in lockdown. All our movements cut off, strictly confidential. We don’t have the administration’s official response to this presented to the public yet.”

“I’m going to go notify the President” was the response Berkley got.

“What are you going to tell him, Al? How can we expect Bill to handle this? You know we only bring these things to him if it’s absolutely necessary, he’s got enough on his plate as it is.” Berkley quivered in place, rooted to his spot and unable to make a move, let alone offer a better suggestion.

“The truth, George… – that the leader of Al Qaeda himself– fucking Osama bin Laden – was spotted in D.C.”


	2. Chapter 2

In all his years, Al could count on his fingers the number of times he had seen Bill show true emotion. It took up less than one full hand. As he moved through a dimly lit stairwell, empty but for himself, he went over what he would say. Part of him wanted to be abrupt, to get it over with, but his subconscious mind knew better. Such a delicate matter required finesse and guile, two qualities the VP held in abundance. As such, he believed getting the president alone would be paramount if the administration wanted to maintain the confidentiality of this news. Even Al leaving office to visit the President raised eyebrows to certain individuals in the White House, those who took his actions out of proportion at every turn and started at the slightest hint of danger.  
Exiting the stairwell and entering the hallway, Al was lost deep in thought. He failed to take notice of the individual approaching him from the corner of his eye until it was far too late.  
“Ah, Al, I see you’ve woken from your great slumber? I hope you didn’t give your aides too much of a hard time” Bill Clinton chuckled, pleased with himself. His smile radiated outwards, giving him a warm glow that spread to whoever he talked to. You couldn’t help it, the guy just felt…likeable. His stature contributed to the notion, as his large but solid frame gave an air of assuredness and security rarely found nowadays.  
“This is not how I imagined this going, but…” were Al’s thoughts, but he knew better. If he seemed too desperate or nervous, it would only escalate from there. Better to bide him time and wait, even if that meant going through the agonizing motions of making small talk.  
“Listen Al…” Bill placed one his large, solid hands onto Al’s shoulder. “There’s been a…misunderstanding between myself and one of my aides. I hoped you could help me to smooth the matter out. Let’s go to my office.”  
Al blinked, a little taken aback at the request. He searched the president’s face, his eyes questioning. Such a matter wouldn’t require the vice president’s help, and it made Al wonder just how much the President already knew, but he hid his feelings behind the same phony grin he saved for the press. “What’d you do this time, Bill? Scare ‘em off again with all your puns?” Lying between his teeth for the sake of conversation, Al put on a joking air. “HAH, no, I think he just got a little too comfortable in his position” was Bill’s reply, before turning on his heel and motioning for Al to follow. Al hadn’t missed the grim expression tracing itself over the president’s face.  
Al quickly matched the president’s pace as they walked to his office, all while imagining who was really in the dark here, him or the president. He realized that, perhaps, what George had given him wasn’t everything found so far. In that case, Al needed a second opinion. Only one person was good enough to get information out of Bill, and Al swiftly made a mental map to her office. Al spoke as they moved into an elevator, hoping to catch the president off-guard. “I apologize Mr. President, I must still be half-asleep. The Daily Star sent a reporter over yesterday, we caught them trying to hop the fence. I vouched for the man in question, I figured we wouldn’t want to piss off one of our biggest media supporters by harassing their workers.” Al spoke quickly, already moving to intercept the closing elevator doors. “But we’ve still got them detained downstairs, I’m sure I should be the one to release them from custody.” Deftly exiting the elevator, Al turned around at the sound of the President’s voice.  
“Good move, Al, you’re exactly right. Having the media up our ass’ll be the last thing we need, especially with…” Bill left his sentence unfinished, instead pausing to nod at a passing congressman. “But afterwards make sure to stop by my office ASAP, OK?” Al nodded his head, a little too quickly for his own liking, as the elevator doors finally shut, leaving him yet again alone with his thoughts. “That actually worked?” Al thought as he sighed in relief. Turning around, he took a moment to find his sense of direction, as well as the First Lady’s office. Hillary. She would be Al’s source, as she had already been countless times before, when the President stubbornly unwilling to confide in his VP. Al’s eyes landed upon the congressman who had caught the president’s attention.  
“That’s strange…” Al thought to himself. He had believed he could recognize any of Congress’s 535 members by heart, but this man alluded him. Tall, lanky, and with a somewhat stooped posture, the black suit and pants appeared bulky and jagged. They blended into the man’s dark but obviously middle-eastern complexion, and Al had a tough time placing the country of origin. Afghani? No, maybe Pakistani? Taking a moment to appraise him, Al failed to recognize the beads of sweat dripping from the man’s hair, how his eyes darted nervously from person to person. His hands moved from suit to pant pocket, and then back again, revealing his unease.  
Al dropped his gaze and pulled his thoughts back to the problem at hand, that being finding the first lady and gathering info. Just as he managed to get his mind in order, a loud ‘click’ froze his steps.  
“All…” Al’s world shrunk, closing in on those few words. Every part of his being strained against himself as he fought the urge to run. “Allahu….” Al set off, not knowing where, just understanding that if he did not move away, anywhere, he was a dead man. “ALLAHU AKBAR!!!!” Seven, eight, nine steps was all he got, until Al’s world exploded in a blur of pain and fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We know these first couple of chapters were a bit rough, please give us your honest reviews and opinions, it only helps us get better :D :D :D


	3. Chapter3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so this it the first chapter that I wrote, the other ones where from C.  
> This is my first story ever and English is not my first language, so forgive me it's probably not so awsome xD. Hope you still enjoy it, leave some rewiews!  
> L.

Hillary flinched violently when she felt the explosion hit, a second later feeling the rumbling shaking the foundations of the entire building. Almost jumping out of her seat, she tried to keep her composure but, hearing a small crash behind her, she realized that she had stood up with such force that her chair had been pushed over.

                She walked over to the heavy oak door separating her office from the hallway and ripped it open. Hillary only got to make two steps outside before one of her secret service agents pushed her back in, throwing the door closed behind him; but it was enough time for her to see the hallway completely ripped apart, dead or unconscious bodies lying between the door and the origin of the explosion. She didn't know what to do. She wasn’t used to not knowing what to do. She decided that she hated this feeling of uncertainty, of fear, so she turned to the person she thought had the best chance of getting her through this.

                Steve had been thrown backwards by the explosion, his ears buzzing and his head hurting terribly. But he had a job to do. So he pushed himself up from the ground, trying to ignore the bodies of friends and colleagues lying dead and dying around him. He saw the heavy brown door open, saw her stepping out of her office, how her eyes widened at the thought of the utterly destroyed hallway, pipes hanging out of the hole where the ceiling had been, exposing the next floor along with the once cream walls, now colored black by soot from the blast.

                His only thought was to get her out of direct danger. So he pushed his right hand against her shoulder, effectively backing her into the room while pulling the door closed with the other. He was making himself ready for an argument about helping the people outside, but when he looked down at Hillary’s face, he just saw her looking up at him, blue eyes wide open, with a look on her face he’d never seen before. Fear. “Stay here,” he ordered, while walking around her desk to pick up her fallen chair. He lodged it under the doorknob, creating a makeshift barricade.

                The sound of gunshots being fired seemed to pull Hillary out of her shock, and she looked at Steve, her emotions now hidden safely behind an iron curtain. It gave Steve strength to see her pull herself together, calming him more than anything else could have. “What’s the plan?” she asked him and he felt her gaze boring through his body. He thought about it. Was there a plan? The smartest thing to do would probably be to stay in the office and hope that nobody would find them. So he met her gaze and replied “We’re waiting”. He could see in how her expression changed that she didn’t like the idea.

                “We’re just waiting? We’re just waiting for those people out there to find us and probably kill us? We should get out of here and tell the police, or somebody… surely somebody else has got to be out there that can help us… or we could try and at least help the people out there…” She had grabbed the chair, but was cut off in her talking, as well as her movement, when Steve grabbed her free wrist, pulling her back against the wall. Hillary threw him an unbelieving look, promising a painful death if he continued gripping her.

                “We’re not going anywhere until we have a very good reason to leave the _only_ safe space that we have right now!” Letting go of her, he added “I’m sorry, ma’am”, neither of them knowing whether he was apologizing for pushing her up against the wall or their current situation. “It’s okay…you’re right” she said as she slowly slid down against the wall, hugging her knees. Steve had moved the visitors chair so it was blocking the backdoor to her office and then sat next to her, keeping a respectful distance.

                Hillary was deep in her thoughts when Steve started speaking again. She had checked off every person she was close to, coming to the relieved conclusion that Chelsea had a sleepover at a friend’s house, and to the less pleasing one that Bill was probably still in the White House. “Have you ever shot a gun?” pulled her out of her mind. She looked at her agent, surprised. “No” she answered, not really knowing where he was going with that until he pulled out a second small pistol from his ankle. He gave it to her. “This is the safety lock” he started explaining, pointing to a part of the gun. “This thing won’t go off without unlocking it like this” he said showing her how. “Then you just point and pull the trigger…and hope that you hit, or at least score the target, in your case.” She raised her eyebrows at his joke about her inexperience with weapons, but still thanked him while she took the gun from his hand.

                Both their heads head jerked around when somebody tried to open the door, first normally, then by violently rattling on the door knob. “Mrs. Clinton”, Steve said so calmly that it unnerved her more than she already was, “Now is the time to leave” he said, pulling her up while running to the backdoor. The moment they vanished through the opening, she heard the door behind her splintering into a thousand pieces as whoever was trying to enter made their way into her office, immediately taking off after the pair as they ran through a small hallway. To their dismay, it only lead into another, bigger one. She screamed when a bullet flew past her head, way closer than she would have liked, and almost gave into the reflex of going down but Steve pulled her forward, forcing her to run faster.

                Three more shots were fired until they reached the corner of the hallway, every time Hillary thinking it would connect with either of them. They gasped for air behind the safety of the wall, but Steve’s next words stole Hillary’s momentary hope. “There’s five of them” Steve breathed out. “No chance they’ll not get us here, this hallway’s too damn big”. He considered his chances to get the first lady out of the situation alive and made a decision, looking down while nodding to himself. Gently taking her by the shoulders, Steve made Hillary turn to face him. “I need you to run down this hallway and not look back”. He saw the immediate objection forming on her lips. “No” she said in an almost strangled voice. “They’re going to kill you”.

                “I’m just doing my job, ma’am” was Steve’s reply. “No offense, but that’s what I signed up for”. When she still didn’t make any signs of moving and he heard their attackers closing in, he took one of her hands into his, squeezing it softly. “It’s okay, Hillary”. “Go, please”. And then he gently pushed her forwards, cocking his gun while he put himself in the hallway, hoping that his last choice was the right one.

                Hillary was running. She had tears in her eyes but she blinked them away, telling herself that crying wouldn’t make anything better, that she had enough time for crying when this was over. She had come as far as two hallways when she heard them speaking and laughing loudly. It made her unbelievably angry, but the fear kept the anger at bay. She jumped into a small alcove in the wall, hoping that she wouldn't be spotted. The men were speaking a language she didn’t understand, but from their voices and laughter she could make out that they were comfortable in their position. They had passed without realizing she was there, and she should have known that that was enough luck for one day.

                When she was sure that the two men were gone, she slowly came out of her hiding place. “ _Too soon_ ” was all she had time to think before she saw him. She realized it was too late, that he heard her anyways. Hillary stopped dead in her tracks, standing in the middle of the hallway, trying to think of a solution. Her world slowed down around her, the man’s movements becoming glacially slow as he turned around, his dark eyes locking with hers, pulling his gun up. Fingers laid on the trigger, he seemed ready to fire at a moment’s notice, and she just barely jumped to the side just in time to keep the bullet that flew from the gun from hitting her face. Hillary hissed in pain when her back violently hit the wall but she stood up as fast as she could. Adrenaline pumped through her body, giving her strength and banishing the pain. She saw how the man pointed the gun at her again, and she started running. Not away from him—she knew it would be useless—but towards him, reaching him before he could pull the trigger. She threw herself against him, effectively knocking the weapon out of his grasp. They both fell to the floor. Hillary tried to reach for the gun, but her attacker grabbed her leg and pulled her back. She screamed out, kicking at his face, the feeling of satisfaction filling her with she felt his nose break under her heel. He seemed to have a higher pain tolerance than she had expected because he didn’t let go of her. Kicking at his hand this time, she finally managed to break free, her fingers wrapping around the weapons handle, and then he was on her, slapping her over the head. She waited until his hand was raised up to hit her again, and then pulled up the gun, shooting two times before rolling them over, pulling the trigger until the magazine clicked empty.

                Hillary scrambled off his now limp body, gasping when she saw the blood pooling on the floor, over her arms and legs. She scooted backwards until her back hit a wall, realizing that she had just killed someone. She sat there for a few minutes, mind blank and devoid of thoughts while staring at his dead and bloodied body, not knowing how to move forwards until the sound of gunshots scared her back into reality. Dragging herself off the floor, now covered with another lifeless corpse, she resumed her search for an exit.

                Hurrying down the floor she thought lead to safety, out of nowhere a hand appeared, yanking her head violently back by the hair. The force threw her on the ground and she crawled backwards, trying to get as much space between her and her assailant. Her hand searched for the gun she had put into her waist band, fingers scraping against the solid, dull metal. She pulled it out, hands shaking with fear while unshed tears were clouding her vision, and she pulled the trigger. Or at least she tried to, but nothing happened. And before she could make out what was wrong the man was over her, emotionless brown eyes looking down into hers as he yanked the gun out of her hands. He looked angry. His dark hair was matted to his face from sweat and ash, and he gave her a murderous expression. “You try to shoot me?” He asked in clipped, broken English. He raised his left hand and slapped her in the face, the impact making her head fly to the right. Again she felt another impact with the stone floor, pain making its way through her skull, throbbing against her temple. She had cried out when he hit her, trying to shield herself with her arms, but he easily caught both her wrists in his free hand making it impossible. His grip was so tight that she was sure, if she would survive this night, there would be bruises by morning. He brought his face down close to her ear, still ringing from the blow, and said “don’t you ever do that again”. The next thing she knew was seeing the handle of the gun come down on the side of her head.

                She was half-conscious when the man carried her down the hallway into one of the rooms. Roughly, he let her fall onto the concrete ground, turning around to find something in a bag on the table. Her head was pounding and she groaned out in pain, rolling over to her side. Some rational part of her knew that she would take the chance and run, but she wasn’t able to form a complete thought at the moment. He must have found what he was looking for, because he came back to her grinning. When her eyes fell on the ropes he held, she realized its purpose and tried to crawl backwards, but too late. He had already grabbed her wrists. The feeling of ropes being tightened around her body was the last thing she knew before drifting off into darkness’ warm embrace.


	4. Chapter 4

Bill Clinton was not a stupid man. He knew his options were limited, and that he was short on time. But he hadn’t realized _how_ limited. He stood, by himself, in the kitchen of his home in Virginia. The buzzing of the cicadas outside announced the coming of night, but the kitchen’s brightly lit interior kept Bill wide awake. In front of him, on the counter, stood his enemy, his lifelong nemesis. Hillary and Chelsea had already left the room, leaving Bill to fight his battle alone. Bill eyed his opponent warily, thinking of what his next move should be.  The scent of peaches drifted through the air. _“Crafty”_ Bill thought to himself, “ _but you can’t fool me that easily”_. But Bill’s resolve was already crumbling. His mouth started to water, his stomach grumbling to show its displeasure. “ _Ok, maybe just a slice”_ he thought. But just as Bill grabbed a knife, planning to cut a piece of the homemade peach pie off for himself, the house shook.

            Bill stumbled to his right as tremors emanated throughout the walls. Metal bent, floorboards creaked, and nails squealed as all were pushed to their limits to keep the structure standing. Plates slid out of their cupboards, chairs overturned, and furniture upended as the whole house was thrown into disarray. Bill fought to maintain his footing, but he slipped on the smooth tile floor. With a crash, he was sent to the ground, landing on his head with a painful “ _THUD!”_

            Tears blurring his eyes, Bill’s vision swirled into a mixture of colors and lights, threatening to fade out entirely. Voices screamed out at him, seemingly from all angles, yelling words he couldn’t make out. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t budge. It was only when he looked down below his waist that Bill saw the slab of concrete pinning him to the floor. And not just the concrete, but portraits, statues, and ornaments, all of incredible value, lied shattered or broken around him. _“The hell?!”_ Bill thought. Still groggy from his head injury, Bill twisted around like a drunkard, trying to take in the surrounding carnage. It took several seconds for his mind to put it together. He was not, as he had thought, in his home in Virginia. He was in fact lying trapped underneath a piece of fallen plaster. Stretching his neck upwards, Bill could make out the hole in the ceiling the tile had come loose from, the ripped copper and metal pipes that jutted outwards at odd angles. Bill could only give thanks that none had ripped through his own body.

            As his senses gradually returned, so too did the pain from his head. Bill realized he must have hit the wall, rather hard too, and been knocked unconscious.  Feeling through his hair, Bill discovered he was bleeding slightly, but the wound didn’t feel too serious. The voices, however, were not from inside his head, as Bill originally believed. In fact, now he wished they had stayed there. _“Oh god no….oh dear god what is this…”_ Moans of agony and pain crept towards his prone figure, emerging from the twisted and ghastly forms of his secret service detail. Limbs were flayed from the bone, skin lacerated and hanging in shredded, gaudy fashion. Bodies bent at unnatural angles, disfigured arms and legs hanging helplessly to the sides, if they were attached at all. But that didn’t stop their inhabitants from voicing their torment. If Bill had a gun, he would have put each of them out of their misery. If he had been just 10 feet ahead, Bill would have suffered the same fate as those sworn to protect him. _“How….how did this happen?! A bomb? From where? And who?”_ Questions swirled through Bill’s head as he fought to remain conscious, but he had no time to answer any of them as he felt a tremor run through the hallway. Checking underneath him to test the ground -- and feeling it steady enough -- Bill strained with all his weight to move the tile pinning his legs. It started to shift, slightly at first, but then with a crash it slid off his legs and onto the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust. Slowly, painstakingly, Bill dragged himself upwards, clinging onto the wall for support.

            One step, then two, then three, Bill limped forwards into the gloom, desperately peering into the clouds of swirling ash and smoke, trying to get a bearing. He tried to remember where he was right before the explosion, or where he was going. Searching his memory, Bill recalled taking an elevator to…to his office! _“That's right….my office. I need to reach my office”_. A sudden impulse caused Bill to move, the urge to reach his quarters increasing. _“Right, right, then left.”_ Years of walking these halls, at every hour of the day, meant Bill knew the White House like the back of his hand, maybe even better. Even with the lights flickering or off and visibility at only a few feet, Bill managed to find his way to the doors of the oval office. Unlike so many others, these had stood tall, sturdy and imposing, as if daring somebody to try and tear them down.

            Pushing against them slowly, Bill stepped back in surprise as they lazily swung open. Peering forwards, Bill inspected the room as best he could from outside. In stark contrast to his surroundings, the office appeared entirely intact, as if a portal had opened up a scene from the past, showing the time right before the bomb detonated. Bill moved forwards in disbelief, thinking what his plan of action should be. The desk of the oval office, besides being impervious to bullets, had a variety of emergency alarms built in. In the case of said emergency, it was one of the safest places the President could hope to be. Bill intended to set off those alarms if they hadn’t already triggered. He only made it four steps into the room when the door swung shut behind him. A loud BANG! echoed behind him, reverberating off the walls, shattering the previously thick silence. Bill spun around and leapt at the door. Grabbing the knob, he frantically twisted it, but to no avail. He was locked inside. Breathing heavily, and starting to get a bad feeling, Bill turned. A flash of black, the smell of oil and metal, and suddenly the butt of a gun entered his vision. Bill fell to the ground, unconscious, unaware of the captors who emotionlessly stepped around his body. Hoisted by his arms, they dragged him to his desk, taking care to bind his body around the chair to prevent his escape.

            When he came to for the second time that day, Bill felt the beginnings of a searing migraine. He blinked, trying to stop himself from succumbing to the pain. His chest felt constricted and he tried to move his arms, but to his dismay he found himself bound with a rope. Sitting in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, president of the United States, slowly woke to a disturbing scene. A man sat in a chair directly opposite the president. He was clothed in a simple brown vest and white tunic, with a white turban on his head. A long dark, and fully grown beard extended from his chin, braided slightly at the bottom. At first glance he appeared middle-aged if not elderly. Two armed guards stood to the sides of the man, covered entirely in black swathes of interweaving fabric. If Bill strained his eyes to either side, he could sense the presence of guards to his right and left as well. A tripod placed in the middle of the room blinked, its green light flashing signifying it currently recording. It was trained directly on the helpless President. _“From the frying pan and into the fire”_ he thought ironically. If his face hadn’t been twisted in pain he might have shown a smile, but it came out as a painful grimace.

            Suddenly, the old white-clothed man stood up from his chair, looking Bill directly in the eyes. He moved forwards until he was merely inches from the President’s. Squinting, he searched Bill’s face, what he was looking for Bill had no clue of until the man opened his mouth to speak. His voice was lighter than expected, but in heavily accented English. “No fear,” he grunted. “That is good. A man of your station shouldn’t feel fear…at least not from something as small as this…” He gestured to Bill’s surroundings. “All this…. _trouble_ I went to…just to get a moment of your time.” His eyes glinted, bright as a child’s but deceiving as a tricksters. “What do you want” Bill made sure his voice was even, his eyes and face betraying none of his own emotions. He had no idea if the tripod was recording this broadcast live to every major news station in the world. As far as he knew, the entire American public, no, the entire _world_ , could be watching him right now. He had to appear calm and in control, even if in his head he was panicking like an amateur.

            “What do _I_ want?” The man cocked his head to the side. “ _I_ want world peace. What do you want, Mr. President?” Bill shook off the man’s intense gaze, focusing on a space in the distance behind him. He couldn’t let his thoughts be disrupted by the man’s stare. “I want to know why you’ve had me bound up, in my own office, after letting off a bomb in the White House!” Bill desperately tried to relay vital information through his question. If that tripod really was broadcasting live, it was critical that what was happening reach the outside world. “Well…” the man chuckled to himself, “Well, world peace isn’t as easy to attain as one would hope. Sometimes…sometimes the world needs a little _push_. A guiding light from above.”

            “And how do you expect to bring this about? By holding me hostage for ransom?” the president all but seethed with anger, barely holding his rage in check. “Money? Guns? Is that what you think it’ll take to bring about real change?”

            “Guns, bombs, weapons, they are all a means to an ends. We all use these weapons of war, but are we all criminals? No. I say we are saviors. We dare to bring an end to the suffering of the world, while countries like yours sit idly by. The man straightened his back and assumed a dignified air. “And I, Osama Bin Laden, will bring about that change”.

            “Oh?” Bill scoffed at his captor, his disgust manifesting in a twisted snarl of his lip. “Suicide bombings. Massacres. Terrorist attacks. That’s all you hold to your name. The deaths of countless innocent people, for a future you can’t possibly hope to imagine. You’re delusional if you think I or the American people are giving in to _any_ of your demands, because we. do not. negotiate. with terrorists!” Bill’s voice rose to match his anger until he was all but shouting. The guards on either side of Bill aggressively moved forwards, one pressing the cold barrel of his weapon’s muzzle to Bill’s head. But with a motion of Bin Laden’s arms, they backed off.

            “Mr. President. I don’t deal with ransom money. I don’t deal in…” he spit out ‘guns’ as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “I want something more…dramatic. Your country’s nuclear codes.” Bill couldn’t help himself “Hah!” he laughed. “What makes you _possibly_ imagine I’d give up weapons of mass destruction that have the power to kill millions, no, tens of millions, to a psychopath like you?” Bill meant the question rhetorically. He understood that his life was forfeit, he was willing to go through any means of torture or death if it meant the safety of the American people. But Osama walked to the tripod, and attached a curiously-shaped device from an unseen fold in his clothing. A projector screen suddenly jumped to life, illuminating on the wall opposite Bill a truly horrifying scene.

            “Mr. President…First Lady”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It just gets more violent from here...minor spoilers but ah well xD - C


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning:  
> This is the chapter with the most violence, it's mostly torture, blood pain the whole thing. If you are having problems with that, you should not read it!!!
> 
> I'm sorry for what I did. It was only me, L. C Had nothing to do with it. Please don't kill me!!!

The first thing she felt when she woke up was her throbbing head. The pain was pounding against her temple, eliciting a groan of agony. She moved her right hand to her head, wincing when her fingers came back covered in half-dried blood, and grimacing in a mix of pain and disgust she tried to wipe the blood on the floor, only half succeeding.

Hillary slowly got up, trying to make out her surroundings. She let her eyes wander through the room, noticing how her vision was slightly blurred.

Getting up off the floor, she walked through a hallway, arriving at a door to her right. She tried to open it, but found it locked. After a minute of pulling and yanking on the knob, she gave up, slumping back against the wall and hoping that someone would find her before the terrorists returned.

Hillary jumped, lifting her head from the darkness and looking around. She’d been woken from her temporary rest as someone unlocked, and violently ripped open, the door from the outside. “Get up”, the man that had attacked her earlier growled. She looked at him with big eyes, not really knowing how to react. He didn’t leave her the time to consider her options, though. The man grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her up and forcing her to walk down the hallway before she even stand firmly on her feet. Stumbling behind him, she suddenly realized that wherever he took her, it couldn’t be good. “No”, she said, surprised at how steady her voice sounded. “Stop”, she said a little louder, while she started pulling against his grasp on her wrist. It only made him tighten his hold, to the point where it was painful. Hillary tried to pull her arm away, but no luck. She hit his arm but he didn’t budge, and she felt tears jumping into her eyes. She screamed out at him to let her go, to leave her alone. She sobbed and couldn’t see. Everything was blurry. Pain was making her stomach turn. She didn’t want to die, and she wasn’t ready to. Struggling against his grip, she dug her finger nails into his, trying to make him release her hand, hitting against his arm all the while, until suddenly with a jerk forward, he let go of her, sending her flying straight into a wall. She squeezed her eyes shut and raised her arms in front of her face when she saw the wall coming, but it didn’t stop a whimper of pain from escaping when she hit the wall hard. Before Hillary could recover, she felt a hand grasping her hair, painfully yanking her head back. She heard his dark voice in her ear, venomously telling her to stop complaining, before he jammed her head into the wall again and her world went black.

\--

\--

The vicious slap on her cheek brought her back to consciousness. Her eyes snapped open when the hand connected, making her head fly to the right. Hillary tasted blood in her mouth, unable to get its metallic flavor out.

She groaned in pain from her injuries, trying to stop her movements for a second to catch her breath. To her surprise her captors had left her alone for a few moments. She was sitting in a chair, hands tied to the arms, and her head was buzzing, making her think she might have a concussion.

She tried to look around the room but her vision was still blurry. She could only make out the shape of the man standing next to something that looked like a door, and a table with something laying on top of it. Before Hillary could make out what the thing was, she felt cold fingers grasping her chin, forcing her head around, making her look up to meet her captors gaze. She gasped when she recognized the man standing in front of her, his hair still perfect, his suit without a speck of dirt on it. Hillary couldn’t believe that he’d do something like this, that he could betray them like this. When he let go of her chin to let his hand caress her check, a malicious smile appeared on his face. She snapped out of her shock and pulled her face away from his touch. “This is treason” she said, her voice almost not wavering.  George laughed. It was a cold, humorless laugh that sent chills down her spine. He grinned. “Don’t you say” said the head of internal affairs. He walked around her, her gaze following his every move until he stood behind her back, resting his hands on her shoulders. She squirmed under his touch, feeling disgusted when he let his fingers trail through her hair, his grasp on her shoulders tightening, daring her to move away from his touch again. Hillary grimaced when his hand that had trailed through her hair came to rest on the side of her neck, making her head slightly shift to the right. He pressed his cheek into her hair, his mouth right next to her ear. After remaining like that for a few seconds, he whispered into her ear “I’m sorry for what’s about to happen to you”. His fingers caressed her throat. “But, the president is not exactly cooperating with us, so…if you want to blame somebody for this, blame him”. When he finally let go of her, she felt like she hadn’t breathed in years.

He moved to her front again, pressing a button on a screen in front of her that had gone unnoticed. It showed a room, the oval office, she realized after a few seconds, along with her husband in the middle surrounded by men with guns. He looked at her with a mixture of deep love and something she hadn’t seen in him for a long time, fear. When George took his place behind her again, his hands pressing on her shoulders, pulling her against his chest, the only thing she wanted to do was curl onto Bill’s lap and shut out everything around her. His eyes found hers, blue meeting blue, a silent apology from his lips for not being able to keep her safe.

George spoke again, amusement in his voice at the sight of them both being entirely speechless. “Mr. President” he said while running his hand through her hair again “you can just tell us now, and spare your lovely wife a lot of pain”. Hillary didn't know what to think, what could they want that was worth all of this to themselves and Bill?

Bill looked at her face. “I”, he started, but his voice broke. “I-I can’t give you the nuclear codes” and with that statement all her hopes of getting out of the situation unharmed vanished. He wouldn’t give them codes, he couldn't. And she didn’t blame him. Hillary didn't fight against George’s grip anymore, letting herself fall against the back of the chair. She was silent for a few seconds, looking down to the ground until she put her gaze on Bill first, “It’s okay”, she whispered, giving him a reassuring smile. “I can take it”. Looking up at George, with as hard a voice as she could muster, she said “He will never tell you. The United States of America does not negotiate with terrorists. You might as well just kill us now, you won't get any information from either of us.” George walked to her front again, turning his back to Bill, and took her face in his hands, completely ignoring what she had said. She did her best not to flinch, to look strong from the outside, but she couldn't cover up the disgust she had towards this man completely. He was turning her head slightly to the right, giving him a better view on the bloody gash on her hairline. “That must have really hurt” he said, while pressing his fingers into the wound, making her close her eyes and hold her breath in the attempt not to scream. “Imagine this pain all over your body”. He pulled his hand away, and she could breathe again. He looked at his bloody fingers in disgust and wiped the liquid on her blouse. He stepped to the table, taking the menacing-looking instrument Hillary had spotted earlier off it.

The knife was big, reflecting the light in the room almost beautifully. It was long, a black handle on the bottom, and on the right side a flat blade extended outwards, making a small wave. On the other there was a smaller blade, looked sharper and more precise than its sibling. “Last chance, Mr. President”, George said, tracing Hillary’s jawline with the knife. Hillary saw tears in Bill’s eyes as he turned his head away, trying not to look at the knife on her skin. She wanted to tell him that she could take it, that he should just not listen or watch, but she was afraid that her voice would betray her and break, so she just looked straight ahead.

She bit her lower lip hard, trying not to scream as the blade cut through her shirt and then her skin. Hillary whimpered when George cut into her flesh a third and fourth time. Willing herself not to cry, she took clear measured breaths, trying to concentrate on something else besides the pain or George’s grinning face, as he pulled the blade over her skin in a zig-zag line making it as slow and painful as he could. Hillary took in a shaky breath, her efforts to calm herself failing.

\--

\--

The screams bounced off the walls of the small rooms, followed by pain-filled sobs. Hillary had stopped caring about the noises she made a long time ago. She was trapped in her own world, consisting only out of her, the knife, the pain, and George’s grinning face, the face that seemed to enjoy every second of her suffering. When her right arm had been so cut to the point that he couldn't see where to cut anymore into the torn fabric of her blouse, he had moved to her back, pulling bloody lines between her shoulder blades, making his own gruesome painting.

She felt blood running down her arm and back onto the chair, and she let herself imagine how it touched the wood and fell down to the floor, only to join other previous drops of blood that has also fallen from her veins. When she felt the knife at her back again, she sobbed another time, her breath stuck in her throat. George appeared in front of her, lifting her head up while he smoothed her hair out of her face, and wiped her tears from her cheeks. He bent down, “Shhh, it’s okay, don't forget to breathe.” He said it in such a caring voice that it was hard to believe that he was the one that held the knife only seconds before.

He kept pulling his fingers through her bloody matted hair, waiting for her to regain her breath before walking around her fast. Before she even realized what was happening, he had started to speak. “So Mr. President”, he said, and paused. The knife dangled in his grasp for a moment, before he reversed it and rammed it down through Hillary’s left arm, even piercing the wood below. Hillary let out a short, strangled scream, staring at the blade going through her flesh, staring at the wound she couldn't believe. Her eyes were fixed on the point where the blade stabbed through, blood already seeping out around the edges. “Are you ready to talk?”, George said while he casually yanked the blade out. Hillary cried and bent over in pain as far as she could, trying to hide from the world.

His hands were on her shoulders, making her sit up. She looked into his eyes, silently pleading for him to stop. And to her surprise, the bonds on her wrists were cut. They were swollen and bloody from her struggling, but it felt good to be finally freed of the rope.

He turned towards the screen again, starting to speak further, but she didn’t hear what he said, it was so hard to focus on anything. She felt strong hands pulling her up, her legs not being able to hold her, and then a fist buried itself in her stomach. They let her go as she slid down the wall. Hillary laid on the floor, not yet recovered from the hit. Her vision swam, black spots dancing on her vision, so inviting that she just wanted to let them get bigger, to let the darkness make everything better. “ _ I’m freezing” _ , she realized. The rational part of her brain, or what was still working, told her it was serious, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She was ready to drift off, until she saw it.

The gun lying on the table, right in front of her. Only three men in total were in the room, all deep in conversation with the person on the screen, and entirely ignorant of Hillary’s movement. In that moment, she let adrenaline take over, ignoring how her body protested. She pushed herself off the ground, grabbing the gun. She remembered the quick lesson Steve gave her, of turning off the safety, and shot. To her own surprise, two of the men reeled from the noise, falling to the ground in quick succession. George was the only one left standing, seemingly unfazed from the outburst. She wanted to pull the trigger, but suddenly her legs no longer supported her, and she swayed, all her apparent strength having vanished. George smiled at her, amused. Walking forward to her, he took the gun from her hands while saying something she couldn’t hear. The only thing Hillary could feel was herself falling as the ground rushed up to meet her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yea.... I'm sorry Hill....


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much less blood, pain, and violence than the previous chapter, although still a bit. I don't have quite the knack for writing that stuff as my partner XD. Enjoy! - C

Al breathed in deep lungfuls of air, exhausted and pained from his nonstop movement. After the bomb had detonated, his body had been propelled nearly ten feet in the air by the force of the explosion, the mixture of chemicals and compounds enormously destructive. Al felt like an insect having been flicked aside by a vengeful god. Slammed against the wall chest-first, Al had fallen to the ground nearly unconscious. When he had the willpower to try and raise his body, he fell back to the hardwood floor with a ‘ _thud’_ , clutching with one hand what felt like a broken rib, possibly two, and with the other his head. Along with these were more obvious injuries in the form of angry purple bruises along both his arms and center mass. Just attempting to move, he envisioned himself disturbing broken and fractured bones. He couldn't help but imagine splinters digging themselves into his flesh and inflicting terrible damage to his cartilage and vital organs. He had to fight the urge to lay where he was, to pray for aid from an outside force. With an audible grunt –not that anyone around him was alive to hear it – he slowly lifted himself into a sitting position.

                His head initially swam with dizziness, threatening him with a stabbing, persistent ache behind the eyes like a drum being beat mercilessly against his skull. Al willed himself to fight through what could only be the result of serious blunt-force trauma. Trying his best not to heave, his eyes eventually adjusted to the gloom enough for him to see and think rationally. His intention of finding the first lady, a goal that had seemed a lifetime ago, lie crushed in front of him, literally. An entire section of the second landing he had been moving towards had caved inwards, causing his path to her office to be completely blocked. The surrounding walls had hairline fractures running along them like spider webs, threatening to send the entire section of the building crashing down, flattening him with it. While the option of taking a longer route existed, Al feared that he would be wasting precious time he could be using to search for other survivors closer by. He also had no idea how many other suicide bombers or armed hostiles might be inside the building. Racking his brain, Al made the painful decision of dropping his current mission of locating the first lady, and resolved to instead look for the President, someone he knew was bound to be much closer. He hated to admit it, but the President’s safety was far more important than that of Hillary’s. Apologizing mentally, Al had turned around and retraced his steps, albeit with caution.

                Now, as he treaded upon velvet rugs scorched by the heat of the blast, Al strained with not just his eyes but all his senses, searching for noises, smells, movement, any source of life in the nightmarish hellscape the White House had become. So intent was Al that when he did hear something, his body jumped with fright, showing his lack of self-control. _“What are you, a child? Damn it Al, get a hold of yourself!”_ Even chiding himself, Al desperately wanted to run towards the noise in the hopes of finally finding salvation, a reprieve from this torment and possible aid. But intuition stayed his limbs, and he instead ducked inside the room directly to his right. As it turned out, he had hidden inside a men’s restroom, with urinals to the right and stalls lining the left wall. Leaning outside the doorway to continue listening for noise, and possibly see, what he had heard earlier, Al waited with baited breath.

                It didn’t take long for more and more of the noise to be heard. Hurried and frantic, the sound of uneven footsteps entered Al’s ears, so close now he ducked back inside the room. He figured whoever it was had to be right outside. Their breathing was short, and he assumed they must have been running for quite some time, searching for survivors like himself. If they were doing that, then the chance they were an enemy was slim, Al thought. He inched his body towards the doorway, and out of the corner of his eye saw her. A woman, alone, stood in the center of the hallway, twisting her body this way and that. She appeared lost. Her long brown hair swished with her movements, and as her eyes darted nervously from shadow to shadow they connected with Al’s. She froze in place, and Al watched confusion register in her expression. She was probably thinking for what reason the vice president was hiding in a men’s bathroom during a crises such as this. If the circumstances weren’t so dire, Al might have found the current situation comical. He made to move forwards, slowly as to not scare her, but he never got the chance.

                At first her body seemed to twitch involuntarily, mistaken by Al for a spasm of fear. But then he saw the blood, a dark crimson hue, spreading around her midsection. Her eyes, a dull grey, never broke with Al’s as she crumpled to the floor, her knees folding underneath her. No words escaped her open mouth, but Al could see the shock registering in her face, alongside fear. Her breathing grew more ragged as she pawed at her waist, trying in vain to stop the bleeding. It only took a handful of seconds for her to cease moving, to lie motionless like so many others in the hall. Her death had only lasted seconds but to Al, he would never forget these moments. Her fear, her panic, her sense of helplessness, and his inability to do anything.

                He had stood there as she died, and done nothing. He had frozen, and it had costed the woman her life. Now, as the sole witness to her death, Al was the only one capable of exacting justice. This he swore, even as he crept backwards into the false security of the bathroom. He could have easily spent hours guessing who was responsible if they hadn't immediately shown themselves. Piercing through the gloom, high-strength laser sights moved with slow, methodical precision from body to body. More footsteps followed this time, but now instead of the hurried and frightened steps of the hunted, it was the dread-inducing, measured footsteps of trained killers. It was at this point that Al understood one thing. He was not alone…

Al’s breathing quickened. His heart raced, and he fought the urge to run. He knelt behind the doorway entrance as the darkly clothed figures moved forwards, closer towards his bathroom. Their clothing, from what he had glimpsed, consisted of smooth black cloth, overlapping each other to form a shroud of darkness. White symbols starkly contrasted the black, symbolizing their allegiance to agents of terror and death. They blended with the surrounding atmosphere, entering Al’s world in a manner he would leave only to ghosts. Their silence only served to reinforce this idea as they drifted over the now-dead woman’s body and scanned the hallway with their rifles. Not only laser sights adorned their weapons, but suppressors and extended barrels turned previously simple-to-produce guns into the weapons of highly trained professionals. Night-vision goggles attached to their helmets made them into predators in this smoke-laden setting.

                From his limited, and it was limited, knowledge of firearms, Al could tell whoever had invaded the White House had the means and resources to arm its men impressively at an assuredly great cost. Al only hoped that cost meant a smaller force, not an entire army. _“And how the hell could an entire army sneak past American defenses and security so quietly?”_ Something was seriously wrong about this. Al wondered if they had someone on the inside, a traitor in the midst of the U.S. government. He would have pondered over this more if the soldiers hadn’t reached his hideout.

                Al had no time to think and less time to act. He quietly shuffled from his kneeling position near the door, getting on his stomach in the process. As best he could, he army-crawled his way underneath the second bathroom stall, sheltering his form from view just as the soldiers entered the bathroom.  They moved slowly, deliberately, with their guns raised and trigger-fingers ready. They panned over the sinks and urinals, but stopped at the stalls. Looking at each other, they nodded and moved closer to where Al was hiding. Stopping at the first stall, one soldier viciously kicked in the door, searching the stall. Finding nothing, he closed the door and moved on to the second where Al was currently hiding. _“It’s now or never”_ Al thought. He quickly slid back to the first stall the soldiers had already checked, making sure the door remained closed with the tips of his fingers. The soldiers burst into the second stall, then the third, then the fourth. Finding nobody, they nodded again and proceeded out of the room and into the hallway to rejoin their squad and report their lack of findings.

                Al lay there, wide-eyed and taking in short, quick breaths. His body trembled from head to toe as his composure slackened, and he could feel himself shivering in spite of his earlier chiding. He had heard and seen much in the world, much that hardened his soul and made him question his faith in humanity, but to experience it head on? He hadn’t been trained for war. His body wasn’t ready, and neither was his mind. The woman’s earlier death kept flashing through his brain, replaying before his eyes like an endlessly looping tape. He was just one man, with no training and no experience. He was up against who-knows-how-many heavily armed soldiers who shot to kill on sight, and Al doubted his position would save him from certain death. His only hope was that they hadn’t discovered him yet, which gave him the element of surprise in an emergency.

                Thinking about his situation more logically, Al slowed his breathing and focused. He heard no noises from outside the bathroom, meaning the squad must have moved on. He got up and opened the door, lightly stepped along the linoleum-white panels until he reached the doorway. Peering outside, he discovered to his satisfaction that he was right. The hallway now remained empty, as devoid of life as before the soldiers had arrived. Bill moved outside, practically tip-toeing across the hall to an adjacent stairwell. He glanced both up and down, and sensing nobody, started ascending to the next floor. At this rate, he managed to at least gain the same floor as the President’s office. With as much optimism as he could muster, Al continued his journey, this time without meeting any more wandering patrols. After another five minutes, he stood, almost surprised, at the doors of the oval office. They bore no marks of damage or assault, but were shut. Al put his ear to one side, freezing when he heard voices coming from within. Angry shouting, in fact. It wasn’t in English, but Al could tell whoever was talking was panicked, for their words stopped and started, and their voices rose and fell randomly. It was then that he heard it.

                His boss, Bill Clinton, the President of the U.S-fucking-A, was shouting too. Just hearing his voice made Al visibly relax. The thick wooden barriers combined with the multitude of languages made it difficult to understand his words, but Al distinctly picked up on “Hillary…touch…dead….survive…”, and then, as if on cue, the other voices stopped, and just Bill’s voice, crystal clear, rang out to Al. “You underestimated her, and look what it cost you, George. If you lay one more _fucking_ finger on my wife, I swear to god you’ll wish you were never born. The day I get my hands on you is the day you die.”

                _“Spoken like a true fighter”_ Al thought, a smile creeping onto his face for the first time today. If Bill Clinton had any redeeming qualities it was how he defended what he loved, and Hillary, well, she was at the top of his list. Al realized Hillary had been captured, and it seemed she was being used against the President. He moved away from the doorway as he heard movement growing louder, and just in time, too, for the doors opened with a bang as three guards, less heavily armed and armored than the patrol from earlier but still dangerous, stalked out of the room accompanying a much older, frailer looking man. They stared straight ahead of themselves as Al hid from sight in another doorway, seemingly confident enough of their position within the White House to venture its halls without worry. Al took this opportunity as they left to view the insides of the office, and what he saw shocked him.

                The tripod, the projector, and worst of all Bill, slumped over in his chair, bound with rope, his face a mess of bruises and cuts to match Al’s. He seemed entirely exhausted, drained of strength or a will to live. It was only when he caught sight of Al that his face changed, no, it transformed. Hope replaced dread as he smiled broadly, causing his cracked lip to bleed in the process. His entire frame seemed to expand as he stretched his body, which had previously contorted Bill into a diminished, punished figure. Only a single guard had remained to keep watch over Bill, and he was busy trying to peer through the shades covering the windows, perhaps trying to make out the outside world.

                Al thanked his good fortune for what seemed like the 100th time today. He moved forwards until he was right next to Bill, and silently motioned that he was going to free him. Bill hurriedly nodded, his body poised and rigid, waiting for freedom. Al worked as quickly as he could with the guard less than ten feet away. His fingers nervously slipped over themselves, and what should have been an easy knot turned into a mess. He cursed to himself and focused, and in another moment Bill’s hands were free.

                Undoing the bonds on his legs himself, Bill slowly rose, feeling his joints and muscles scream in defiance, but it was nothing compared to his rage. He picked up the chair that had acted as his prison for too long, raising it high above his head. With footsteps that echoed the silence of the earlier ghostly patrol, Bill walked purposefully towards the guard. Too late, the guard caught Bill’s approaching reflection in the mirror, turning his body and gun to respond. The chair crashed loudly over his head with such force that it splintered apart, heavy oak craftsmanship no contest for the President’s murderous intent. Picking up one of the sharper splinters, Bill rammed it into the guard’s leg for good measure, eliciting a scream of agony. “Serves you right” Bill muttered, before picking up the gun. He turned to Al, with a look that gave away everything and nothing. “Let’s go save my wife, Al.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Al gets some time in the spotlight for what's probably the last time for a long time XD - C


	7. Chapter 7

As Bill stalked outside his office, he paused to take in the surrounding carnage. His eyes scanned the hallway, darting from shape to shape as if looking for trouble. He immediately set off at a breakneck pace with Al close behind, intent upon once goal: reaching his wife. While Bill would have undoubtedly preferred the most direct route to Hillary’s office, the lack of information concerning patrols made the two men cautious. Now wasn’t the time to be bogged down in a firefight, or worse caught in the open with no chance to hide. They stuck to walls, peered around corners, and listened for footsteps with baited breath.

            Thanks to their precautions they managed to avoid certain death twice; once, as an off-duty guard left his room for a cigar break, Al, having just stepped foot outside a stairwell, immediately backpedaled until he smashed into Bill. Bill, not expecting the surprise assault, nearly pulled the trigger as he jammed his stolen gun into his Vice President’s back. Al froze in terror, thinking another terrorist had finally sneaked past him without his noticing. His hands shot to his sides as he tried to surrender.

            Bill rolled his eyes, sighing as he turned his VP around and jabbed the gun into him again. “Jesus Al, you’re not supposed to give up yet, and especially not to me.” Al’s face turned red as he realized what he had done, and he spun back around, determined not to make the same foolish mistake. The second time was far closer. Both Al and Bill had just entered what was originally another empty hallway, identical to the countless others they had covered so far. However, unlike the others, this one had no adjoining rooms, no cover to speak of besides the countless bodies scattered on the floor. It was essentially a death trap. As the two men picked their way across, they heard the telltale signs of life, sounds that filled them with dread: the soft, slow creak of boots as they moved across floorboards. Bill’s heart raced as he readied his gun, but next to him, Al had a stroke of genius. He dropped to the floor as quickly as he could, motioning for Bill to do the same. Catching on, both men disappeared among the bodies, hiding themselves in the company of the dead.

            Moments later, out of the slits of their eyes, they saw black-clothed legs stabbing downwards, the clothing floating in the air like vapor. Another patrol, lighting up the hallway with their flashlights and laser sights, slowly moved past the hidden pair. Neither man dared move, let alone twitch a muscle, for fear of getting a bullet to the back. It wasn’t until each member of the group had left both their sight that either man began to breathe normally. Moving their limbs slowly at first, they pulled themselves out of the pile of corpses, repulsed and disgusted at themselves. Neither spoke as they started to move again, but their grim expressions masked the self-contempt they felt. After all, these were White House employees, American citizens. They deserved so much more than being used as cover, so much justice that likely would never be repaid.

            It didn’t take much longer until they neared Hillary’s office. Although neither man had been open to discussion, instead preferring to keep their thoughts to themselves, both realized they needed a plan before entering. Al had seen the camera displaying Hillary’s office, the bloodshed evident on the chair and upholstery. Bill described how they tortured her, used her as a tool against him, but more. She hadn’t just been tortured for information, but for pleasure. All the while George had been slowly enjoying his sadistic work, Bill was made to watch, almost breaking to the unbearable agony his wife underwent. Now, Al felt Bill’s pain, if only a sliver. He told Bill about the documents George gave him, how they must have been falsely produced to drive the pair apart, but for what reason neither man understood.

 

            Bill and Al had agreed though, that Bill, since he had the gun and retained a fraction more experience with weapons than Al, would lead into the room first, followed closely by his VP. Al, not wanting to feel powerless, had picked up a fallen metal beam, handling it like a bat. Bill grimaced as it brought back memories of his beating, but he decided it would only dampen his subordinate’s spirits to tell him. The office, from Bill’s memory, was decidedly smaller than his own, and gave almost no cover to hide. Pushing open the door, which this time bore the scars of forced entry as well as bullet holes, Bill made to enter, but froze. It was Al’s turn to bump into his boss as he desperately tried to catch a glimpse of whatever had frozen Bill’s advance. He wasn’t able to see past the President’s shoulder, but he heard him breathe out her name, sending chills down his spine. “Hillary….” Bill moved forward as if entranced, and the gun dropped from his side. Al finally was able to squeeze past his boss and into the office, and consequently his own breath was taken away.

            Hillary sat tied to her chair, her bindings redone, and this time more tightly. Her hair was a mess of tangled knots and matted blood, and her body bore signs of repeated stab wounds. Al had only heard of what happened to her, but this was the first time he was seeing it for himself. She looked more dead than alive but her chest, slowly rising and falling, gave away her strength. Even as she looked asleep, drained of energy and the will to live, her body and spirit continued to fight.

            Bill wanted to go to her, to comfort her and draw her into him so nothing could ever harm her again. He wanted to apologize, as many times as he could, for not being stronger, for causing her so much pain, all because of his position. If he could go back and renounce his presidency, end his campaign, all just to stop this horrible moment, he would. But he never got the chance, not even to touch her.

            That same smirk he wore that morning, that innocent, know-it-all expression, told Bill and Al everything. George strode towards them from behind the desk, where he must have been waiting. Confidence radiated from him, drenching his character in an aura of malicious satisfaction. His face was plastered with a phony smile, and his back, normally so bent over, was straight. But his confidence wasn’t false. He hadn't given himself away to surrender, for in his hands was a remote. Two switches were attached with lights, and one had already been moved to the ‘on’ position as indicated by the bright green glow. The other still emitted, thankfully, a dull red.

            Bill cocked his gun, raising it to his shoulder and narrowing his eyes. Even as George approached Hillary, slitting the ropes binding her with an almost loving tenderness, his eyes never left his target. Al took the opportunity while both men sized each other up to creep around to the right, just praying that George not flick the second switch on a whim. George picked Hillary up, holding her with him arm, her whimpers of pain causing him great delight, and his smile only seemed to grow. Bill couldn’t help but snarl, more animal than man, his gun shaking with untapped rage.

            Bill broke the silence first. “Let her go, George, and I’ll make your death painless. But keep this up, and you’ll see I’m very good at keeping my promises.” Al remembered the words he’d heard from behind closed doors. _“I swear to god you’ll wish you were never born!”_ Bill had every intention of making George pay, personally, for what he’d done, laws or rules of engagement be damned. It made Bill unhinged, and Al was worried if he could keep his composure. Therefore, he readied his improvised bat and moved to George’s right flank, outside of his direct vision. George turned slightly, keeping him in view, but Bill then slowly moved forwards on his own. Both men played a game of careful advancement, taunting each other all the while.

            “You never could run this country Bill. It needed a leader, someone with vision, someone to give purpose to the American people for existing. All you’ve done is stall us, put us at the whim of every other country on the face of the planet!” George practically spat, his voice venomous with hate. “And look what its cost us. People wasting their lives every day, wasting it on the likes of you! While you’re out having an affair every goddamned week the rest of us sit here cleaning up your mess!”

            “I didn’t ask for this, for any of this!” Bill rose to the challenge. “I’m here cleaning up the messes people like you leave behind. All because you can’t see how blind you’ve become, how you hurt the people around you. You’re blinded by your own selfish desire!” Bill’s voice rose like waves on a rising storm, the tempest within him swirling into a gale of destruction. Step by step, he closed the distance between himself and George, just as Al did the same on the right. Their next few actions determined the fate of everyone in the room. Bill’s loosened his grip on the gun, right before he threw it straight to George.

            Surprised at the move, George was forced to make a choice; drop the detonator or let go of Hillary. Some part of his warped, twisted mind told him Hillary was more important, and the detonator clattered to the floor. Al dove and wrapped his body protectively around it, vowing to protect it with his life. George’s free hand snatched at the handle of the gun, but too late. Bill started upon him with a vicious roar, swinging a right hook into George’s jaw, causing him to snap his head to the left. Al, realizing what was about to happen, tossed the bat to Bill who gladly grabbed it. George laughed maniacally, shoving Hillary’s body to the side and holding the gun with both hands. Bill only had a moment to dive behind Hillary’s desk before George’s finger pulled the trigger. Bullets hammered out at an astonishing pace, biting into the thick wooden exterior, tearing chunks out of Bills last line of defense. George continued spraying the area without paying heed to his surroundings. He was too caught up in the surge of adrenaline, the elation he felt to be forcing the man he had hated for so many years to the ground in submission.

            That elation ended when the gun ‘clicked’. Empty. George’s eyes betrayed his shock. Bill didn’t waste a second, rising from behind the desk, raising the bar above his head. He brought it down upon George’s head with an almighty “THWACK”, crunching through bone and sinew. He dragged it out, and again the bar fell down on George, or what remained of him. Al leapt up and grabbed at the President’s upraised arms, trying to restrain him. “It’s done, Bill, its done, its fucking over!” Al had to shout into Bill’s ear. The President paused, turning to look into his VP’s eyes, almost unrecognizable to Al. “He’s not coming back from that” Al spoke more gently. Bill turned, and looked at George, or what remained of him. He turned back to Al, and then lowered his arms. The metal bar fell the ground with an ominous clang, a single bloody streak forever marking its deadly use. Bill set his eyes on Hillary, and immediately, the animal within him withdrew. He was once again Bill Clinton, President of the United States. Running to Hillary, he slid down next to her, wanting to hold her but scared to hurt her further. Al, some feet away, beheld a scene he later described, to any who asked, as haunting. The President, bent over the body of the first lady, weeping openly, his outstretched arms hovering over her body but never making contact.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what so say so..... yeeeeeeeey new chapter, enjoy!!  
> L.

The group picked their way through the dilapidated structure, moving with care among the rubble. No one spoke as they left the past scenes of carnage behind, each content to the thoughts within their own head. Everywhere they turned, friends, colleagues, and co-workers had been reduced to ash. At this point it had become part of the landscape, and nothing could shake the feeling of dread creeping around every corner, promising a quick release into the sweet embrace of death. Al, the least injured of the trio, lead in front, pausing every now and then to listen for movement. So far, it appeared the White House had gone silent, and even the ghostly, wraith-like patrols from earlier seemed to have finished into thin air. Hillary for her part had remained conscious in Bill’s arms, although it was uncertain whether it was her sheer force of will or the rough journey, as Bill struggled to hold her without hurting her further in the narrow, dismal corridors. All central lighting had at this point failed, the group desperate to see in the darkness. It seemed any windows had been boarded up, screws and bolts holding plaster and planks of wood over the panels. As they moved closer they could feel the heat emanating from the other side of the barrier, telling them it was still daytime. Their eyes fought to adjust as remnants of copper wiring, still embedded halfway in the walls, sparked out at random, causing bright flashes of spontaneous light to erupt from seemingly nowhere. The sparks cascaded over the fallen metal tiles, and Al prayed that none would spark a flame. The last thing they needed was a blaze catching. As they pushed on, Al broke the silence. “We need to get out of here…” He paused, realizing he was stating the obvious. “We need to find an exit. Where are we, right now, from her office?” He nodded at Hillary’s form. Bill’s thoughts moved sluggishly, his mind trying to connect what he saw in front of him with what he remembered from just yesterday. “We’re…this is the third grand hall we’ve passed in the last hour, and since the residential section has been cut off…” he was referring to what Al had told him when he originally went to find the first lady. “That means the closest exit is the main hall, the entrance” his eyes widened. “Who would’ve thought I finally left this building out the front door” Bill whispered as his eyes scanned the surrounding walls. Even in their current state, Bill still felt sentimental leaving this place behind, maybe for the last time. He couldn't believe the walls around him would continue standing much longer, and this thought gave him strength. He wouldn’t die now, not here. Just as they reached a decision, Hillary mumbled. Neither man could make out her words and stood looking at her with blank expressions. She wrestled her arm out of Bill’s grasp, pointing it at something in the distance. They turned to see blurs appearing out of the fog. The blurs grew more humanoid as they moved closer, heads, arms, and chests taking shape. No one else moved. The President, The Vice President, and the First Lady all froze in place, like deer caught between the headlights of a car. Even if they wanted to run, they lacked the strength. Bill refused to leave Hillary to whatever fate awaited them alone. He would stay by her side, suffer by her side, and if need be die by her side. And so the trio stubbornly held their place. They were done running. But it seemed that was their fate today, as well. Part 2: Search Team 31 reported in negative. Nothing from 1-10, 15, or 22 either. So far no signs of life had been found from the White House, but the death toll had been steadily rising in the past hour since the search began. Colonel Horner, speaking through a closed-loop mic, couldn’t help but consider the possibilities, unpleasant as they might be. With every passing second, the chance of finding survivors gradually diminished, and with it the chance of finding the President. He couldn’t stop beads of sweat from forming on his forehead, and he perspired slightly under the sweltering heat of the day. Looking around himself yet again, he was amazed at the sheer military force surrounding him. All three branches of the military had responded to the crisis with a staggering array of troops, supplies, and weapons. Tanks from the Army and Marines lined the White House lawn, crushing the carefully manicured grass along with the archaic fountain, once a centerpiece of countless drab White House tours. Special Forces waited on standby, helicopters humming to life next to them with a spin of their rotors. Craning his neck, Horner saw the blur of fighter jets passing overhead, accompanied by a shriek of moving metal and engines. Only the navy left something to be desired, a small contingent of Seals staking a claim near a picket fence, daring anyone to come near them. Search Team 31 reported in negative. Nothing from 1-10, 15, or 22 either. So far no signs of life had been found from the White House, but the death toll had been steadily rising in the past hour since the search began. Colonel Horner, speaking through a closed-loop mic, couldn’t help but consider the possibilities, unpleasant as they might be. With every passing second, the chance of finding survivors gradually diminished, and with it the chance of finding the President. He couldn’t stop beads of sweat from forming on his forehead, and he perspired slightly under the sweltering heat of the day. Looking around himself yet again, he was amazed at the sheer military force surrounding him. All three branches of the military had responded to the crisis with a staggering array of troops, supplies, and weapons. Tanks from the Army and Marines lined the White House lawn, crushing the carefully manicured grass along with the archaic fountain, once a centerpiece of countless drab White House tours. Special Forces waited on standby, helicopters humming to life next to them with a spin of their rotors. Craning his neck, Horner saw the blur of fighter jets passing overhead, accompanied by a shriek of moving metal and engines. Only the navy left something to be desired, a small contingent of Seals staking a claim near a picket fence, daring anyone to come near them. The crackle of static in his ear alerted Horner to activity on the inside. At first he assumed another squad was reporting their lack of findings, and his face betrayed the graveness he felt in his heart. But then his eyes widened. His hands dropped to his sides, he was frozen in place for a few seconds. Relief cursing all through his body at the words that they had found the president vice president and first lady alive. After a few seconds he turned around, storming out of the area to the tent his superiors where in. “theyre alive” he blurted out, the feces of the officials as surprised as his. jonathan wilson, leader of search team 22 fought his way through the thick fog of the hallway. They had hoped that the dust would clear off with time, but it just didnt seem to happen giving the hallways a spooky feeling. They had been searching for hours now, to no avail. He was gwtting tired and he knew his men where too. He raised his gun, before he even consciously saw the shadown of people infront of him. They stopped, seemed as if they had seen them too. Jonathan saw one of the figures leaning agaibst the wall, sliding down on it, while the other one walked up to him. His gun still raised he motioned to his group to stay back until he gave the sign to attack. It was as if someone lifted a huge weight of His shoulders when he saw the vice president coming into view when the fog cleared around him. He lowered his gun immediately, “we're here to help” he quickly said when he saw the pistol in the VPs hands. The weapon fell to the floor when the man sighed in relief. “thank god” Al gore saidsaid, and added a few seconds later “the president and the first lady are there”, pointing a finger in the direction of the second figure Jonathan had seen, “she needs medical attention as fast as possible”. Jonathan walked over to the spot the VP had pointed to, stopping dead in his tracks for a moment when he saw the scene upfront of him. The president was sitting against the wall, his face having an unhealthy looking pale and bruised colour. He was covered in blood his formerly white shirt now having a crimson colour, while more of the red liquid was still dropping on the floor. Only then Jonathan realized that the president held someone in his arms. She looked so small for a women that usually seemed so big. Her head resting against her husbands shoulder, eyes closed, she seemed sleeping. It didnt look peaceful, an expression of pain still on her features. Her blonde hair was mattad, and coloured red from the huge gash on her forehead “please” Jonathan was surprised to hear the president speaking “please save her”. He thought that he never heard anybody beg him for something like this. He sounded so broken, hopeless as he held on to his wife's dying body. She whimpered in her sleep, and Bill pulled her closer in his embrace, revealing the extend of her injuries by showing Jonathan her back in his movement. He felt physically such when he saw the deep cuts running all over it. zigzag lines painting a picture of agony on her. When he looked up from her ripped shirt again he saw how the president was whispering into her ear and he heard silent apologies for not saving her. Jonathan let his hand rest on the presidents shoulder, the touch making the man look uo to him. “let me halp her” he said while he put his other hand onto the first ladys arm. Bill looked at him for a few seconds as if he didnt understand then nodded letting Jonathan lift his wife out if his lap. Following his every movement with his wyes ready to kill him if he tried to hurt hillary. The moment she was safely in his arms, Jonathan stood up and motioned one of his men to take care of the presidsnt while he told the other one to call rhe officials outside to tell them that they had the president VP and first lady. Then he made his way to the exit. it was a 10 minute walk from the hallway ti the front door but it felt so much longer. Jonathan felt hillarys blood slowly soaking through his jacket, and knew that he didnt have much time left. He tried to talk to her but the few times he got her to wake up for a few seconds, she wasnt able to make one clear thought or word until she faded away again. Everything he got out of her where whimpers and incomprehensible things. One of his men, a paramedic had made a makeshift bandage around the stabbing wound on her arm wich had been the most deep and dangerlus one, but he could see the bandage slowly leaking too. The fact that she was still alive seemed more unbeliviable with every second. He gasped in relief when the doors finally came into view. Someone pushed them open and a stepped into freedom. Everything was in a blur there was the brightness of light stabbing his eyes after hours of fog and darkness. He saw paramedics running to him carfully lifting the first lady onto a stratcher softly hitting her on the cheeks, trying to get any responses but Jonathan couldnt see if she gave them any amymore. He saw a few other paramedics running to the president and vice president taking them to other ambulances the president fought with them. Demanding not to leave his wife, but they ignored him. Then someone came up to him. The women was from the military asking him to follow her and he had to go to the tent with the officials to tell them everything. Maria Boyce had certainly seen many injuries in her 27 years of being a paramedic but the wounds the first lady in front of her had where something she had never seen before. At first she had thought it was only a head wound and a stab in the arm they would have to treat had put the uncounsiousness of her pacient on the concussion she definetely had, but then she saw the blood soaking thlugh her stretcher and realized the extend of her injuries. She had let her colleagues treat the women's arms and went for the gash on her head herself. Maria was surprised when she found her patients eyes open as she came back from the back of the ambulance where she got some new bandages from. Her blue eyes where dull and didnt seem to really see what was going on, so maria gently put a hand on her face trying to calm her down as much as she could. Her eyes wandered around until they found her face. She gasped out in pain “I'm..... I'm so cold” she whispered almost inaudible before grimacing in pain. “it hurts so much” she added to her statement before slipping again, her eyes looking her face wandering around her. “shit” Maria cursed before she found the siringe with the high painkiller. “I'm going to make it better okay?” she asked hillary while she put her hand back onto her cheek giving her as much comfort as she could while putting the sedative into her neck, wich was always an uncomfortable feeling, even though she doubted that hillary could even feel ot right now. Maria could feel her muscles loosening up almost immediately under her hands. As fast as she could ahe worked on the bandage on her head. That she was cold ment that she was close to bleeding out. Way to close. When they arrived at the hospital they immediately had wheeled her into surgery. It had taken a long time time stitch up and bandage her back and shoulder and to stop the bleeding of the satb through her right arm. It had been complicated to treat her, while she needed a blood transfusion, but they had managed. She was a fighter. She was alive. Bill sat at her hospital bed holding his wifes hand in his slowly letting his thumb run over her soft skin until it touched tha bandage covering her stab wound. She was sleeping peacefully, high on drugs and painkillers. Oblivious of the world around her. They had tried to convince him to go home, or at least to stay in his room of the hospital but he didnt. He already left her alone once, it wouldnt happen another time. His eyes wandered to her face and he sobbed out when he looked at her closed eyes, thinking that he might have never gotten to see them open again. He lowered his head onto her waist, crying openly for what happened to her, for how sorry he was, and for what could have been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is not over yet!!  
> L.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and probably whole story is written in honor of BOB from hillaryLeonors story "the legend of BOB", because it still makes us laugh every day!!! XD  
> L.

The room was quiet, save for the lone figure standing over the edge of the bed. He had gotten up from his chair, feeling the distance between himself and the person sleeping to be too distant. Part of him realized he looked out of place standing there for so long, but the other part couldn't have cared less. Bill Clinton leaned over the side of the bed, watching Hillary as she slept. The gentle in-out of her breathing calmed Bill’s mind as it struggled to cope with what had happened. His eyes kept traveling over the numerous cuts covering her body, each one a painful reminder to him of what she had been through.

                “And I couldn’t stop them...” Bill muttered under his breath, speaking to no one in particular. His secret service guarded the doors, acting as human barriers between the President and his bed-ridden wife. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, is to enter unless it’s for Hillary’s wellbeing” were the words Bill had spoken earlier, and so far not a soul had bothered them. Bill’s eyes moved from Hillary’s arms to her face, and a wispy strand of hair that dared its way past her cheek and over her eye. Bill moved to brush the stray strand away, but instinctively moved his hand back when Hillary shifted in her sleep. He dared not wake her, not when her body needed all the sleep it could get. Even now, she wasn’t able to rest, let alone move properly, without the aid of high-intensity pain killers, which came with their own list of side-effects.

                Even so, Bill was constantly being reminded of just how strong she was. She hadn’t complained, not once, while taking the medicine, even knowing what it did to her. The pain, written clearly on her face at times, never voiced itself from her lips. Hillary kept tight control over her body’s healing, not wanting anything to be left to chance, even though that meant more suffering for herself. She bared it silently, alone, which made Bill feel all the more powerless to help. He agonized over asking her what had happened, specifically, details she gave only to the CIA members who had questioned her after, but he didn’t want to make her relive the trauma anymore than she had to. Despite that, Hillary had insisted on the CIA coming as soon as possible, even after just three days of hospitalization. And to Bill, she had kept up her spirits, and even when he saw through her act he never betrayed it, and acted right along with her, as though everything was fine. “ _But it's not fine…and it never will be”_ he thought glumly.

                A gentle sigh escaped her, and Bill’s eyes, as always, kept traveling across the patchwork of pain Hillary’s body had become. Her face, serene before, twitched, and Bill thought he saw a glimpse of fear written on her features. Pain of his own stabbed through him, and he moved closer, as close as he could, without disturbing her. He looked through the window, seeing the twilight hours of the night approaching. He sighed to himself, and moved to the doorway, making sure to let his men know everything was fine. Walking to the front desk, Bill let the nurse working know he was going to spend the night again, and that yes, the couch was more than fine. And so Bill stayed on his improvised bed, in Hillary’s ward that night, and the night after that, and the night after that, and so on, refusing to leave her side ever again.

A click. Three rings. Then a woman’s voice, faint from remaining silent too long. “Hello?”

Al waited on the other end, breathing into the phone, trying to speak but at a loss for words. He knew he sounded strange, that waiting any longer and the person on the other end of the line would be more than justified to hang up. Quickly putting the phone back on the receiver, he almost slammed it down as his arms shook. He tried to slow his breathing, hunched forward, gripping his knees, as the images came back to haunt him yet again, but he failed. He prayed that he remain alone while he tried to stop the trembling from overtaking him…

 

 

\--

\--

\--

_“That’s sweet, incredibly, honey. But everything is OK here.” You’re only in high school, there’s no way they’d let you skip class to visit us on your own.”_ Bill laughed and smiled to himself as he talked to his daughter over the phone. If Hillary was his soul than Chelsea was his heart, and just hearing her voice, a mixture of panic, worry, and sympathy, melted away the pain of his injuries better than any medicine. Hillary was still asleep in the hospital bed beside him, but already her body had shown encouraging signs of recovery. The array of bruises had faded to a dull yellow, blending in more easily against her white skin, and the cuts along her back, while still prominent, had scabbed over and stopped bleeding. The stab wounds however, needed longer, and the doctors worried continuously about the state of Hillary’s arms and motor function. The nerves in the left had been severely damaged, and the doctors said it was a miracle she could move all her fingers.

                As Bill gazed over her for what was easily the 100th time that day, she stirred in her bed. Her eyes slid open, unfocused at first but then fixated on her husband. Bill sat forward in his chair, patiently awaiting her to start speaking. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She furrowed her brow and tried again with no luck. Bill, seeing all of this, hurriedly got up and offered her water from the bedside. Hillary readily accepted the cup, but upon drinking immediately spat it out directly over Bill’s face and clothes, ending up in a coughing fit. He stood there blinking, his face dripping and his eyes widened, as his left hand held the cup and his right still held onto the phone. _“Dad? Are you there?”_ Chelsea’s worried voice sounded over the phone, so loud Hillary could hear it. She couldn’t help herself and started giggling, a little at first, but then uncontrollably, until her entire body was wracked by laughter. Bill nervously joined in, letting Chelsea know they were fine and that her mother was feeling better already. Saying goodbye to Chelsea, he put down the phone as Hillary wiped away tears in her eyes, caught between a cough and a hiccup. “Good morning” she said, as she attempted to stretch as much as her body would allow. She glanced over to the screen covering the windows, the dim rays of sunshine entering through the slits confirming her thoughts.

                “How are you feeling?” Bill asked, regretting his choice of words almost immediately. Hillary’s eyes moved over her body, seeing and assessing the damage both inside and out. “Better. At least, in here.” Hillary lifted her right hand tentatively to point a finger at her temple. “But on the outside…” She sighed as she slowly lay back against the welcoming comfort of the mattress. “I’m still a mess.” Bill once again felt that familiar sensation of despair. He hated seeing his wife so weak when he couldn’t do anything to help, besides giving her the best treatment and care money could buy. Hell, Bill had even considered things money _couldn’t_ buy, experimental drugs and tests nobody but him could authorize. Thankfully, the situation hadn’t called for it. “The doctors haven’t changed their diagnosis. I’m bedridden for the next six weeks, and nothing outside of massage therapy is giving these legs any action. The pain killers help, at least with the physical pain, but I just can’t stop thinking about…about _him_.”

                Bill guessed at her emphasis, placed on ‘him’, taking it to mean George. “Don’t worry darlin’, I think you got the better of him.” Bill fought to keep a small smile from creeping up the side of his face, remembering the events of George’s death with more than a little satisfaction. “But how, Bill, he’s still out there, even now, plotting to get vengeance and murder countless others.” Hillary looked at him with concern and mild annoyance. Bill was confused. _“Who-what now? George is a ghost?_ He thought to himself. For a brief moment Bill envisioned a phantom George, creeping through the White House walls with knife in hand. Then he realized she meant Bob Laden. “Oh! You meant Laden. Well, yes, and we’ve lost trace of any sign of him. That being the CIA, the NSA, the FBI… we even put the Washington D.C. police force on alert, just in case. It just doesn’t add up. How does an Al Qaeda prophet, along with a small army just vanish? Especially with what seemed to be all of America’s military on our doorstep.” Bill could still recall the rows of tanks, planes, and infantry lined outside the White House walls, powerless against the invaders who used their own place of government against them. With a hostage situation like that, the might of an entire country became useless.

                “Maybe they didn’t vanish. Maybe they’re hiding out, within the city” Hillary suggested. “That was our first thought.” Bill’s countenance was grim. “It’s only been ten days since everything, and no foreign planes have been spotted in the air, or ships off the coastline. The chance of them walking out on foot and not being spotted are next to none. But city surveillance still hasn’t picked up even a hint as to their whereabouts.”

                As the pair sat deep in discussion, the TV hanging on a corner wall of the room, previously airing an episode of SpongeBOB Squarepants, switched over to the CNN morning news. All the media outlets in the country had been tirelessly covering the events of the crisis, and immeasurable eye-witnesses, talk-show hosts, and conspiracy theorists had gained notoriety discussing the distaster.

                Crisp in his morning blazer, BOB Lawblah, the chief news anchor of CNN, started his daily monologue. Bill and Hillary’s attention was drawn away from their previous conversation by the headlines, which made the both of them pause. In all caps, the message “TERRORIST ATTACK IN D.C. INSIDE JOB. VICE PRESIDENT TO BLAME” was proudly displayed.

                “How can they even begin to….those fuckers…” Bill seethed with anger. Hillary ignored it. She had learned long ago the media prayed on attention. Giving in to her emotions now would only be playing into their hands. “Ignore it Bill. There’s no possible way Al could be remotely made responsible for this. You know how many offices and departments he oversees? If every scandal and crisis was his problem we would all have been kicked out of office long ago.” Hillary’s logic calmed Bill’s mind, and he turned back towards her. “But they have no idea…” Bill started. “They don’t know how Al’s taking this.” He averted Hillary’s gaze, feeling her questioning stare burning into his skin. “He…He locked himself in his office. I think he really does feel like he’s to blame.”

                “And you didn’t tell me about this why?” Hillary felt annoyed by her husband’s lack of communication. Bill tried to think of a reasonable excuse but finding none, he told her the truth. “You were sleeping…?” he said sheepishly. Hillary’s eyes bored into him, and he felt like he was being analyzed head to toe. He continued on, trying to dig himself out of his mess. “I know that Al’s your closest friend too, and I wanted to tell you. But with how you were dealing with the pain, I figured you should focus on getting better yourself before worrying about others…” Hillary sighed, showing a defeated expression. She knew her husband meant well, but sometimes his lack of forethought was astonishing. “Al’s just as close to you as he is to me, Bill. You don’t decide when to tell me if he’s in trouble. I’ll hear it, and I’ll find a way to live with what you tell me, just like you’re dealing with what he’s told you.” Hillary gently let her thoughts be known, either too tired or too kind to truly be angry at her husband.

                Just as the two of them lapsed into an awkward silence, the CNN channel’s message abruptly changed. A new headline, starting with the all-too-familiar ‘BREAKING NEWS’ was now displayed. “TERRORIST PROPHET SEEN IN D.C.” Both Hillary and Bill’s heads swiveled towards each other, and their eyes locked. Questions swirled through both of their heads, but before either could get a word out the door to the room opened. Four secret service agents piled in, lovingly remembered by Hillary as BOB 1, 2, 3, and 4. BOB 1 and 2 stepped forwards, speaking directly to Bill. “There’s been a development in the situation Mr. President. We need you to come with us. We’ll explain everything on the way to the base.” They were referring of course to the temporary base of operations. Bill got up to leave, his face grave. He turned back to give Hillary one last look, and wished he hadn’t. She looked so small and frail, her body still bearing the signs of horrible torture. She gave Bill a small smile, her head nodding to give him the go-ahead to leave, but he wanted nothing more in the world to stay by her side. BOB 3 and 4 remained in the room as security as Bill and the others swiftly left. He could only imagine how the media and not the combined efforts of the United States government and military had found the terrorists first…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you find all the BOBs C. Put in there? XD I don't know if I should love or hat him for doing this xD


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yea.... we just can't leave them alone xD  
> Hope you like it, leave a comment and tell us where we can improve!!!  
> L.

Bill stepped into the car, secret service members acting as a human shield while doing so. The driver, a longtime member of the Clinton administration and a close friend of Bill and Hillary’s personally, turned towards him while starting the engine. “Nice to see you, Mr. President. How is our First Lady doing today?” His voice was cheerful, perhaps a little forced after catching sight of the President’s expression. Bill brought his eyes up, giving an encouraging smile, glad to have someone to talk to. “It’s nice to see you too, Hank. She’s hanging in there. Every day she’s getting better, and just you wait. One of these days she’ll be right back in this cab with us”. Bill fondly referred to the car as “the cab”, although in truth it was everything but.

                “Glad to hear it! And you be sure I’ll be the first to welcome her back when she is”. Hank turned back, starting their journey towards the temporary headquarters the government was using, a location even Bill hadn’t been made privy to for security reasons. “ _Security”_ he thought to himself, checking out his new detail. Since the attack, all of his previous secret service agents had died, either from the initial explosion or the teams of soldiers gunning people down in the hallways. He was guilt-ridden, having never taken the time to learn the names and lives of the people sworn to protect him, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his wellbeing. “ _And sacrifice they did…”_ Bill bowed his head slightly, mumbling a soft prayer to them while the car grinded over the burning hot streets of D.C.

                They arrived roughly around mid-day, having taken a myriad of twists and turns within what Bill had considered the worst slums of the city. In reality, it was private property of the U.S. government, maintained in such a way as to remain inconspicuous. Which made it the perfect hiding place for emergencies such as this, when the White House came under threat…or in this case was near destroyed entirely. Pulling up along the curb, Bill gave Hank one last wave of farewell before being escorted through a narrow alleyway, to a well-hidden metal bulwark created to blend in with the abject poverty of their surroundings. The titanium metal had a thin layer of wood covering it on the outside, nails and holes galore to emphasize its age and weakness. An agent pulled out their identification card, inserting it into a hidden slot. Three seconds passed while the men present stood there in silence, so quiet that Bill wondered if something went wrong. But then, with a grinding of gears, the door automatically swung open. The group moved in quickly, into what Bill assumed was a spacious elevator, almost the size of an entire bedroom. Behind them the hidden doorway shut, sealing them from the outside world and returning the alleyway to its dutiful bland nature. Another guard stepped up to a glowing array of lights on the opposite wall, not amiss from an 80’s arcade game, and selected the very bottom button, again prompted to put his card into a slot. The supposed elevator shifted, and Bill felt the lightness in his stomach pulling him up towards the ceiling, affirming that they were indeed descending, rapidly too.

                It didn’t take more than half a minute for the elevator to start to slow, and Bill readied himself for the hubbub and insanity that was sure to be outside that door. The majority of the surviving White House staff, along with workers from every single other major branch of the U.S. government, had come to the HQ as volunteers willing to work despite the national crisis and what they had been through. It could only be seen as commendable given barely anybody was getting paid to be here. The attack had left a deep scar on the face of the United States, but that hadn’t stopped people from working their asses off. With another shifting motion, the elevator stopped and the doors opened, to a hallway teeming with life. A short ceiling made Bill feel the compactness of the space like nothing else could have, and the seemingly endless hustle and bustle of the crowds only served to reinforce his opinion. Men and women in uniform from all the branches of the military hurried past, all pausing to snap him a sharp salute when noticed. Luckily for Bill, the secret service agents were able to break through the crowds like rocks in a brook, and once word got out that the president was there everyone moved to the sides and gave him space to pass. The group made their way to the rooms currently housing the top brass of the U.S. military, along with the president’s cabinet. There, the president saw seats being filled as its members set up for their haphazardly scheduled meeting. Time was of the essence, so they dug right in, discussing the news headlines and the search times presently combing the city for any trace of suspicious activity. Warehouses, abandoned city districts, businesses, slums much like the one the president was currently hiding under, and more were seized and searched.

                Bill had chosen to disregard the public outcry that was surely being heard in the news right now. He imagined headlines stating “President Invades D.C. Homes and Businesses”, and felt the urge to tack on “For Terrorists” at the end. _“But anything to sell a paper”_ he thought bitterly. As time rolled on, his thoughts drifted back to Hillary, and how much he missed her, and at what early hours of the morning he’d most likely be done. Report after report came in negative with the search times finding no trace of Laden’s whereabouts, further mystifying his sudden arrival and departure completely under the radar of U.S. surveillance.

                One of Bill’s secret service, having stood quietly at the entrance the entire time, suddenly started, his right hand shooting up to his ear. Even wearing dark shades the president could see the shock evident on his body. No, not just his, all the agents were bringing their hands to their in-ear communications and reacting to something happening on the other end of the device. Two of the men immediately locked the doors to the room, standing put and effectively keeping everyone inside hidden from outside view. Two others made their way to the president, pulling him up from his desk. Bewildered, Bill snapped back to reality as his mind slowly brought itself back to reality. “What’s going on?” he asked, speaking most likely the same thoughts as everyone else in the room, who had watched the development quietly but with surprise in their faces.

                “We’ve lost communications with Agents 3 and 4. Sounds of fighting, no gunshots”. “ _3 and 4…the ones staying with Hillary!”_ Suddenly Bill felt a cold feeling of dread in his stomach, and turned to one of the agents. “The ones at the hospital, right? Guarding Hillary?” The agent looked at him for a second before nodding his head in the affirmative, causing Bill to sink back into his chair in silence. The agents rushed to move outside the room, and frantic communications could be heard between them as they coordinated plans to protect the president and contact members of the military in the area. Bill stared off into nothingness, the same words repeated in his head, over and over. “Not again…not again…please, not again”.

 

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                Al’s fist paused inches from the door, hovering uncertainly in the air. It had taken all his willpower to get this far, he thought to himself. He couldn’t stop now.  Al breathed in deeply before quickly knocking. He waited with baited breath as footsteps sounded from the other side, shifting his weight from side to side out of nervous tension; thinking about what he wanted to say, how he should say it… but every time he tried to focus images of the dead woman’s body kept floating into his mind, clouding his thoughts. He clenched and then unclenched his hands, already sweaty, and willed himself at least in this moment to have not the fun-loving and personable image of Al Gore the public had come to love, but at least some semblance of a grave and dignified Vice President.

                The door opened, and Al took a step back in shock, nearly losing his footing on the slippery pavement. His eyes opened wide as he beheld the person standing before him, as if he couldn’t believe they were real. And yet they were. The woman Al had seen killed, shot dead right before his eyes, stood there looking at him in confusion without a scratch on her. Al couldn’t help himself from checking all the areas of her body that he had seen bullets entering (and exiting), and for a moment he wondered if he wasn’t dreaming. But after a short moment, he realized his mistake, and attempted to cover for it with a solemn nod. “Good evening, Ms. Jasten”.

                The long dark hair swirled in front of the woman’s eyes, wispy strands covering the side of her face as she looked at the Vice President with an expression close to indifference. “What do you want”-it wasn’t a question but a statement, and Al couldn’t help but pity the woman for her lack of emotion. Surprise? Shock? Happiness? Nothing showed on her face except the cold stare of someone whose pain could never be shared.

                Her sister. Her twin sister. Al had read up on her, done some digging, trying to find out what nearby family he might be able to reach. Parents? Dead. Children? None. After a few days of searching he had doubted whether or not Alyssa Jasten, a CIA operative at the White House that day--the wrong place at a worse time--even had living family left. But through some connections –and persuasion- from her colleagues, he managed to get some information regarding her mother’s past, her giving up one of her children for adoption. Apparently it was too difficult for her to raise two children alone, and rather than lose them both to child services she gave one up in order to keep the other. The Ms. Ellen Jasten that Al was currently staring at was the one given up that day.

                _“I’m here about your sister, I wanted to personally apologize for your loss on behalf of the entire United States government”_ \--were the thoughts running through Al’s head--but he couldn’t get his voice to work. He managed only to stutter out “I want to apologize to you… personally. Please”. Her eyes betrayed her surprise, perhaps not expecting such a non-political answer from a politician. She motioned him into the room, and Al again bowed his head in thanks. He stepped into her house, noting the dry and dusty atmosphere. A film of dust covered nearly every surface or piece of furniture, which were sparse to begin with. While nicer than an average D.C. apartment complex, it was only slightly.

                Al stood there, not knowing where to begin, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and lighten the mood, although he wasn’t sure whose nerves he was trying to calm more. “You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee, would you?” The woman blinked, but nodded nonetheless, and Al took it as a good sign.

                “Milk, sugar?” she asked. “Both, thank you”, Al tried to smile, but it felt so forced he dropped it. There was so much tension in the air he could almost feel it. Ellen’s back was turned to the coffee maker, so Al took the chance to sit down at the counter. His phone vibrated, and he saw the caller ID to be none other than Bill. For quite possibly the first time , Al turned down the call. He placed his phone back in his pocket and looked up to see the fresh cup of coffee being offered to him, a gentle smile on the woman’s face.

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The hospital room was silent, empty except for the women sleeping peacefully in her bed, her blonde hair spread over the white pillow. The perfect silence was disturbed by a man, in doctors uniform, carrying a glass and four pills on a metal tray. He put it down on the small table next to her, careful not to disturb her sleep, and let the small pills drop in the glass. One after another they vaporized into the water, leaving no trace in the clear liquid.

 

He crouched down next to her head, his fingers slowly caressing her face and wandered up over her temple into her hair. While he played with the blonde hair, he spoke to her, calling her names while urging her home to the world of the living. After five minutes, he was successful, the women finally opening her beautiful blue eyes, still sleepy from her deep slumber, immediately wide awake when she realized who had woken her.

 

                The first thing Hillary realized when she slowly came out of her deep sleep was someone touching her face. Fingers tenderly traveling up her cheek, grazing her temple, until they reached her hair. They traveled through the thick locks, like a comb as the person played with it. Then she heard a voice, unfamiliar but calming. The hand was back on her face, touching her skin in such a tender way. There was the voice again, the words slowly making sense in her head. “Hey Hillary, it's time to wake up”. Wake up? But it was so nice in her sleep. But with time, the voice got louder and she couldn't block it out anymore. When she opened her eyes, she looked straight into the face on him. Of Laden. The man that tortured her husband. The men that had her tortured for codes he knew he could never get. The shock must have been written in her face because Laden looked at her and gave her a smile that could almost have been genuine. She wanted to scream, but he pressed one finger onto his lips, and lifted a gun to her face with the other hand. “Don’t scream” he whispered. “We wouldn’t want anyone here to get hurt” he might have not said it, but she got his silent threat. He was prepared to kill everyone in this building. Hillary wanted to say something, but she couldn’t talk. Her throat was dry as sandpaper and instead of saying something she just coughed out.

               

                “Dry throat?” he asked while handing her a water glass that had been standing on the small table next to her. She didn’t answer but still tentatively took the water from his hands. Drinking deeply she was already able to sort her thoughts better. There were so many questions that demanded an answer, but she couldn’t just start talking to him. She needed a plan. Acting as if she was very thirsty, she drank the whole glass, slowly, to collect time. Laden’s smile just widened. She thought that he looked like the joker, an evil smile always plastered onto his face.   

 

                “What do you want? Why are you here? You can’t possibly think with the secret service and the police in this hospital, that you’ll get away with anything. You should run right now, and run as far as you can”. It started out as a chuckle, than went on to laughter echoing from the walls of her room. “Hillary, sweetheart, half of your agents are dead, the others on my side. The police will not stop us”. Tears threatened to spill over but she willed herself not to cry. “Why are you here?” she asked again. He looked at her for a few minutes, seemed to consider if her wanted her to know, and then got up, faster than she would have expected from a man of his age. He grabbed her face, his hands cupping and holding onto it, making her look right into his eyes. “You seem like you’re such a smart woman, Hillary” he said, malice in his voice “and now after everything that happened, everything I asked for, you still don't know what I want?” A wave of dizziness washed over her when he let her go and she held on to the bed post to keep from falling. Looking up to him she realized that she had been drugged, realized what that meant. She tried to get up, to escape, but her legs gave in under her. Laden grabbed her around the waist and pulled her up, he grinned down in her face as she fought against his grip “For such a smart woman, you still you were stupid enough to drink a glass of water your worst enemy gave you”. Her hits slowly got weaker when the drug affected her more and more. “No, please” she whimpered against his grasp while she tried to push against his chest. The man didn't say anything, just smiled as she sank down in his arms unconscious.

 

                The fight was over. The man in the doctor’s coat guided the women to the ground when the last bit of consciousness had left her. He stroked long blonde hair out of her face and then pulled out a phone. He typed in a message and then turned his attention back to the small body on the ground. It took the receiver five minutes, then a man came in, a body bag and stretcher with him. Osama Bin Laden smiled, thinking about how well his plan, to abduct her and bring her to his home, went so far.

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                No answer. _Where the hell are you, Al_? were Bill’s inner thoughts. Outwardly though…“What. The. FUCK!!!” Bill screamed as he flipped the conference table, scattering office supplies, foodstuffs, and stacks of unopened documents. His staff stared at him, wide-eyed and slightly scared, as the President tried and failed to control his rage. His eyes darted from person to person, trying to find an outlet for his anger. Was his chief of staff to blame? Or how about the Director of the CIA, no, the NSA? In fact, why not all three?

                The hospital had been locked down completely, every door and window in and out of the building being put under constant surveillance. How the top branches of the U.S. military had managed to lose the First Lady--again--enraged Bill, made all the worse because the target of his rage had fooled him too, luring him out of the room long enough to capture her. Bill had even attempted to put a temporary ban of communication through the local CNN newscast, believing that someone had fed them a false story, but he had been stopped by his chief of staff, who advised him it would look bad for the president to put a ban, however short, on doing their job, even if they were in the wrong.

                But then a ray of hope had shined through, coming in the form of a brief flurry of activity from a row of intelligence operatives at their stations. Tracking all the airspace coming through US borders, anything that turned up on the scanners without a pre-registered flight account would draw attention. And a hell of a lot of attention. An airbus, specifically an A380 commercial jet, had just exited US airspace on the northern-most edge of Maine, making like a bullet towards the Atlantic. While no one could be sure this flight held the First Lady, it was too much a coincidence to pass up. There had been a concerted effort to get jets in the air, until the signal of the exiting jet vanished. Like a ghost it hadn’t left a trace, and the turbulent and stormy weather made any attempt of tracking its jet trail useless.

                Bill had stood, watching in defeat as Hillary’s signal disappeared from the screen, there one second, gone the next. People came and went around him, flowing like water around a dangerous rock in a stream. None dared go near him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing to say. Again. I hope you like it, C and I worked on this a lot! Leave a comment, tell us how to improve and most importantly enjoy reading!!!  
> L.

                The knife slid out of her back, sobs mixing with the sound of George’s laughter. Everything was bloody, the floor, her clothes, her skin. His voice and hers sounded weird, echoing off the walls and overlapping. Red drops fell from a vast emptiness replacing where the ceiling should be, pooling on the floor, turning into a river circling around her chair. Realizing her bonds were gone, Hillary stood up, wanting to run. She reached for the door, but her vision blurred and the room transformed into a long corridor. She tried to dash down its length, but she never seemed to move forwards. George’s laughter came from behind her, and turning around, she saw a tall man behind her, face masked in shadow with a gun pointed straight at her. His fingers pulled the trigger and Hillary squeezed her eyes shut, expecting a bang. But she never heard it.

                Hillary woke up gasping for air. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up straight in her seat, out of breath. She grabbed for the blanket sheets on the hospital bed, but her hand grabbed air. She looked down, and saw an armrest, attached to the chair she was currently reclined in. _“Where am I?”_ was her first thought. This was not the hospital. This was also not the white house. Her eyes darted around the room. A plane. She was on a plane. It was beautiful, definitely a private one, but also not the Air Force 1 she was used to. And then her eyes fell on his face. Laden’s, watching her, with a smile on her face that made her think it was genuine.

                She stared at him for a few seconds, while her memories came back to her. Hospital room. The water. Kidnapped. AGAIN. She tried to get up but it only ended in her bending over, her hand hitting on the table while she tried and failed to breathe normally. She could feel the panic restricting her lungs. She whimpered in a desperate try to inhale enough air and sunk down into the cushions of the seat, until she felt someone’s hand on her back. It caressed her gently, not pushing too much or too far, as if trying to soothe her, while another held her hand. She breathed in, deeply, sucking in the oxygen her body craved, still slightly dizzy and tired from waking up. The hands felt calming, until she looked up, expecting to see Laden still in front of her. But he was gone. The seat in front of her, separated only be a small table, was empty. His were the hands lying between her shoulder blades, the other one still holding her hand. Her eyes went big, and she flinched away, putting as much distance as she could between herself and her kidnapper. Her back hit the wall of the plane, the windowsill painfully digging into her still wounded back.

                Hillary grimaced but didn't stop her quest of breaking the wall to escape. To her surprise, Laden raised his hands in defeat and returned to his previous seat. Her pulse slowed, and she moved away slowly from the wall. Still not speaking, she moved her gaze from him and inspected the planes interior, at least as much as she could see. The white cushions where beautiful and comfortable. There was a small table between hers and Laden’s seat with food on it. She guessed that he was the one who had eaten, as a knife and fork laid on the edge of a plate, still determined to cut into a juicy steak. She eyed the silverware for a few seconds until Laden suddenly burst out laughing, making her flinch again while frowning at him. Her hand absentmindedly moved closer to the knife.

                “Are you”, he said between laughs “are you really going to stab me with a butter knife? Well, give it your best shot!” Her brain, sluggish from rest, agreed with him, despite her full intentions to still kill him where he sat. But she wouldn't get far with a butter knife. So she lunged forward, grabbing the fork tightly in her right trying to jam it into his arm. But Laden was faster than she expected. He had grabbed her wrist, twisting it uncomfortably until she let go of her improvised weapon from the pain. Her arm was twisted at such an angle that her back basically laid across the table, arched in submission. He grinned down at her. “You're such a fighter. If we'd work as allies we could be a force together”, and she spit in his face.

                To her surprise he didn’t hit her, but let her go, even pulled her up, until she slapped his hands on her shoulder away. Hillary hissed out in pain when she settled back in her seat. Her back and left arm were burning, and she cursed in her head that she hadn’t let Bill convince her to take more pain medicine. “ _Bill…”_ Her mind immediately went to her husband. He must be worried sick by now. She’d give so much in this moment to see him and Chelsea. To make this have never happened. Laden looked at something in his hand. She couldn't quite see what it was, but it seemed to tell him something because he looked up at her smiling. “We’re almost there, you might want to buckle up.” Hillary pressed her lips tightly together, and did not move. Laden sighed at her defiance. “Please Hillary”, he said in an exasperated voice, “I don’t want to do it myself. I’m sure you’d rather not have want me to buckle you in for you, would you?” Giving him the most hateful gaze she could muster, and without breaking it, she slowly pulled the metal ends together until they clicked. “Thank you” Laden said politely. She didn’t answer him, and he seemed to get the message that her silence was complete.

                Her gaze wandered out to the window, and despite Laden’s earlier remark nothing but blue sky surrounded her. She wanted to lean over, and see the shape of whatever land they were flying over, but she didn’t want Laden seeing her interest. So she let her mind asses her situation. She was kidnapped and on a plane, and being brought out of the country most likely. She wasn’t tied up. To that Hillary didn’t know if she should be insulted or thankful.  

                She felt the plane dip, the motion causing a sickening feeling to spread in her stomach. Usually she had Bill by her side, holding her hand and helping her with it, but now she was completely, entirely alone. When the landing gear hit the runway she let out a sigh of relief. She sensed people behind her moving, and turned to see the guards stretching, grabbing their gear, and preparing to disembark. They had guns hanging around their shoulders and some had half of their faces covered. _“Fuck”_ she thought. Any hopes of her escaping were dashed after one look at their weapons and serious, emotionless faces. She looked at Laden, expecting him to have her tied up, knocked out, possibly both. Instead he got up, walked around the table and held his hand out to her. She looked at it with disgust for a few seconds before getting up by herself and backing away from him. She was so focused on him she backed straight into a guard’s chest, causing her to flinch and turn away. Laden moved towards her, speaking slowly and gently.

                “We’re going to have to blindfold you” he said in an almost apologetic tone, while he laid one hand on her shoulder. “No! You don’t!” her voice came out short and stiff, but stronger than she had expected, stronger than most people’s voices would be surrounded by so many heavily armed men. He sighed and turned away, getting ready to leave. Hillary saw one of the men coming towards her, holding a black blindfold, and dove away under it, taking a few steps forward before he grabbed her shirt and hit her in the face twice.  Before she could recover, she heard Laden’s voice booming through the plane. She didn’t understand the language, but it sounded angry. He appeared beside her as she shrunk back, assuming his anger was meant for her. But again, she was surprised when he only laid his hand on her shoulder and shouted at her assailant instead. “I think you should apologize to the lady” he said and she looked at him, shocked. Her attacker gave Laden the same face before directing his hatred at her, muttering a few words in his own language. Laden looked at the man again, his voice coming out dead-even, “in her own language”. The guard, his face directed at the floor, muttered “sorry…bitch” before going to turn away.

                Hillary returned the man’s hateful stare, feeling her fingers closing into a fist, and before she could stop herself she swung her right hand, catching him in the jaw. He stumbled a little, and Hillary felt a dull throb building where she had connected. That punch probably hurt her more than him. Laden held his hand up. “Happy now, Hillary?” he said, but it didn’t sound angry, more bemused, like he was enjoying the scene. “No!” she said “he hit me twice!” The corners of his mouth pulled up into a smile, “Our culture is much different than your own. For a woman to punch a man counts at least twice as much”. She bit her lip, tasting the blood flowing from the split. She looked in Laden’s eyes for a few seconds before turning around and hitting the man again. A satisfied smile spread over her lips when she felt the bone of his nose break, even as the skin on her knuckles split open. The other men had to hold him back as he lunged at her, fingers desperately trying to reach for her throat. Blood ran down his nose as he fought for purchase, but Hillary was undaunted. “And in my culture, we call it equality”. Laden laughed out loud while he led her to one of the seats on the plane. Getting out a first aid pack, he slowly tilted her head, eyeing the split and the bluish-blackish bruises already forming around it. Giving her an ice pack, he disinfected the split, and she pressed the ice to the cut while he slowly went on to bandage her hand.

                “Woman, you have quite the hit” Laden said while he wrapped the bandage. He paused momentarily upon seeing the older bandages under her sleeve, covering her injuries left from the torture. He looked up, raising his hand and looking as if he wanted to console her, but let it drop at seeing her face. “Even now, I am sorry that this had to happen to you”. Hillary only raised her eyebrows at him. “Wasn’t sorry enough to stop it from happening. Not when I begged you to”. Laden held his head back up, holding her gaze. “Sometimes horrible things must happen for the greater good”. Hillary wanted to answer, but he had finished with her hand and quickly risen. He picked the blindfold up from the ground, and this time Hillary gave up resisting, seeing it was futile. With the cloth tightened around her eyes, her vision black, Hillary became completely dependent on Laden’s arm for guidance as he moved her down the aisle and off the plane. She hated her dependence on him. Hated how she had to hope that her biggest enemy wouldn't let her run into a pole or fall off a cliff. As they exited the plane, Hillary could feel the sun’s relentless heat burning into the back of her neck, sweltering with its intensity. The air she breathed in had so much dust and dirt she coughed, unused to so many air particles swirling around her. Some ways away, she heard car engines starting, and she guessed that’s what they’d be using to transport her next. Laden remained sitting next to her even while inside the car, and she hated his presence. Her hand almost automatically wandered to the blindfold trying to pull it off, but before she could even touch it, his hand had caught hers, holding onto it even as she tried to pull away in anger. It ended up on his left leg, caught in both of his hands while he slowly explained to her that she couldn't take the blindfold off until they reached her room. Her room. What the hell did that mean? Did he mean the cell? Because surely that’s what they would throw her in, Hillary had no illusions as to what kind of ‘room’ she’d be staying in. “ _Don’t worry Hillary, it’s just a ransom deal. They’ll just ask for money and let you go_ ”, she tried to calm her thoughts. But something told her Laden wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble, just for a ransom deal.

                After a few hours driving, the car stopped, waking Hillary from her slight nap. She felt Laden’s hand on her back, slowly leading her out of the car and into a shaded area. Hillary could already recognize Laden’s hands when he touched her. She hated it, and it only made her want to get away from his sooner. The temperature dropped from a blistering heat to a blissful coolness. She was made to walk straight, then down some flights of stairs, and straight again until the hand on her back suddenly left. She considered pulling the blindfold off and running, but decided against it. She didn't know where they were, and she’d already lost her sense of direction. She heard a key turn in a lock, and a door being opened. Laden again took her hand and led her into the room, saying “you can take the blindfold off now”. Her hands immediately grabbed the piece of clothing and ripped it off. It felt so good to finally be able to see again. She looked around her new surroundings. It was a beautiful room, not big but certainly not small. Two doors led off to other areas, but for now they were closed. There was a small shelf with books on the wall to her right, a desk on the back wall and a big bed to her left. The walls were a warm cream color, the same with the sheets, although those were lined in different golden and silver colors. She had expected everything from a dark dungeon to being tied up and tossed in a corner, but not this. Laden must have seen the surprise written all over her face, because he smiled at her before saying “what, did you think I would chain you up in a dark cell?” she was so stunned that she just responded truthfully. “Honestly? Yes” His eyes grew darker, and he looked down with what seemed like…shame? “I am not a monster, Hillary. Only because I am willing to go lengths that others are not willing to go, it doesn’t make me evil. I’m just trying to save you all”. She wanted to reply, to ask more questions, debate his careless remarks with him, but the moment seemed to be over. “Sit down, please”, he said, motioning towards one of the chairs in front of the table. She stayed standing. He looked at her, annoyed, and walked over to the desk. Grabbing the two chairs, he pulled them over and offered one to her, positioning the other so they faced each other. She thought about it for a few seconds, and then slowly sat down in the chair, still too close to Laden for her liking.

                “There are not many things I will tell you while you are here, at least not things I expect you to listen to. But I do have a few rules. This is a really big house, and half of it is used as military center for the organization. The other half is my living space, and you are in that second half. I put red tape on every door that leads to the first half. You are allowed to move freely in my part of the house, but don't even think of running away. There are guards on every door leading out of the house and in contrast to me, they are not opposed to hurt you, and will gladly do so given the opportunity. You see, it’s entirely up to you whether you want to make that choice… There is also a garden, and if you ask the guards nicely, they might allow you to go there. At 10:00 you have to be back in this room. I don't care how long you stay awake as long as you’re in the room. Dinner will be served at 7:00, which I will be eating. I expect you to be there, but I won't make you come. Just be aware that that is the only food you will get for dinner. If you don't come, you won’t eat until breakfast, got it? For the kitchen, there are the same rules as for the garden. Ask the guards and they will or will not let you in”.

                “Whatever happens, never, ever cross the red tape. I put it there for a reason. If you do feel the dangerous and foolhardy compulsion to cross it, you will have to live with the consequences, as painful as they might be”. She felt like a child that had moved into a new house, like a bird trapped in a golden cage. It might be beautiful, but it was still a prison. Tears jumped into her eyes and threatened to spill over, and she tried to stop them until after Laden had gone, but he still saw them. “Listen, you won’t have to stay here forever. Just for some time and then you can go home. If that is what you want then. The two doors over there are a bathroom and a closet. I chose clothing for you that I imagined you’d be comfortable wearing…and that don’t anger the other men too much. You can lock the bathroom door, but I am asking you to not unless it’s absolutely necessary”. He looked at her, his gaze almost worried. Than he got up and headed for the door. Before he left he turned around one last time. “Catch some sleep, okay? It was a stressful day” and then he closed the door behind him.

                Hillary stared at the doorway he had just stood in. Part of her was relieved that he was gone. Another part of her wanted to scream at him to come back because, if she wanted it or not, he was her only protection here. She hadn’t heard the door lock again, so anybody could just storm in here and do whatever they’d want. She felt the panic rising in her chest again and ran to the bathroom, throwing up every last bit of food she had eaten into the toilet.

                She had slowly lifted herself up from the cold tile floor, making herself go back into the room. She looked down at herself, assessing her body. She was still wearing bills t-shirt. It was way too big for her, almost reaching down to her knees, along some loose jogging pants. Opening the closet, she was greeted with the sight of entirely black and white clothing. She guessed that it had something to do with women here not being allowed to wear bright colors. She took black pants and a white shirt out, inspecting them. “ _That’s something neutral”_ , she thought. _“He can’t be that angry about this”_. After looking through the clothes once more, she realized that everything was long-sleeved, never even revealing her wrist or ankles. Hillary was surprised at how well the clothing fit. The shirt and pants were exactly her size and while they were covering almost all of her body, she wondered why they were not loose, but more in a tight cut.

                It had been at least an hour since she had laid on the bed. She had not moved once, not even to check the time. She just stared blankly up at the wall, analyzing every last crack in the paint, even counted refracted spot of light the lightbulb threw out. Therefore, it’s not surprising how her body visibly flinched when someone suddenly knocked on the door. She sat up straight in the bed, just managing to look halfway decent in an upright position when the door opened and one of the guards entered. He looked at her for a few seconds, “Our commander would wish for you to come to dinner. He said you wouldn’t know the way”. At first she didn’t move, but when he stalked forward, ready to grab her, she quickly got up herself, putting shoes on her feet and stalking towards the door. Still, she hissed in pain when he tightly grabbed her still-injured arm as they walked the hallway. It appears the guards trust didn’t extend as far as she thought. “Let me go” she said “I’ll follow you, no worries, just let me go, you’re really hurting me!” He finally let her go, but only to open the large door they had arrived at, and pushed her into the room. Laden sat at a big, dark wooden table. There was only one other chair at the table, on the perfect opposite of him. “Hillary”, he greeted her. “I hope my guard treated you well, please, sit”. She slowly walked over and sat down on the chair carefully. “Oh, he treated me wonderfully, I love being dragged along by a stabbed arm”. She said ironically, her voice dripping with hate and sarcasm. Laden looked surprised, raising his eyebrows. “I will talk to them about their behavior towards you”. She didn’t answer him.

                Hillary looked at the food for some minutes. It did indeed look delicious, and she was very hungry, dying of thirst too, but something in her held her back. She felt something off about eating the food prepared by her captors. If they so wanted, they could easily poison or drug her, and there was nothing she could do. So she was sitting at the table, torturing her stomach by staring at the food. He must have had realized that something was not quite right, because he had put down his silverware and watched her.

                “If I wanted to poison you, I would had done it already” he said. He waited for her to respond, but started speaking again when it was clear she hadn’t registered him talking. Her eyes remained glued to the lower edge of her plate. “Ok, listen, if I wanted you dead, you would be. If I wanted you drugged, you would be. No offense, but with the men at my disposal, I could do anything I want without putting drugs into your food”. And with that he turned his attention back onto his dinner. She hated him even more than she already did for the triumphant smile that spread onto his face when she slowly took her silverware into her hands and started eating.

                An uncomfortable silence hung like a thick cloud over them, and she was sure that she could cut the air into little pieces if she wanted. “So, did you figure out why you are here?” he asked her, so casually, as if they were talking about what to do tomorrow morning. She stopped her cutting for a second, neatly placing the silverware next to her plate before answering. Shaking her head, she said “well, usually kidnappings are about ransom, but I don’t think you would go that far for a little bit of money… especially knowing that America-“

                “Doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, yes, I’ve heard that line before”. Laden smiled at her. “I’m happy that you got that far about my intentions. Indeed, you are not here for ransom. You know that we are planning on America giving us the nuclear codes”. She wanted to say something, but he held up his hand, effectively silencing her. "But it doesn't have to be a bloodbath". You and I, we can work on this, together!" Hillary saw in his eyes the truth of his words, spoken with sincerity and conviction. “Is it not true, that I spared your life? Is it not true that I've given you complete comfort and safety within these walls? Hell, you're probably safer here than in your own country!...think of it this way. Wars, they're bloody, violent, animalistic affairs, people die needlessly, for nothing! I want to end that. I foresee another conflict, brewing on the horizon. Nothing in this continent has gone right the past few decades, and I have no belief that it will change. You can help me save lives, save them! Not kill them. All it takes is your help”.

                Hillary didn’t believe his words for a second. She just crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him. And started eating again. This didn’t deter Laden from finishing his speech. “I will get what I want one way or another. The president will do anything to save you, even give me the nuclear codes, because if he doesn't…you’ll be sent home in pieces”. She gagged at that, spitting out the duck she had just bitten, pushing her plate away with all appetite having left her. She took a deep breath, fighting off the nausea “He won’t give them to you” she tried to reason. “It doesn’t matter if you send me back in pieces, he wouldn’t do it, he couldn’t, even if he wanted to, the rest of the government would stop him”. Hillary didn’t look at him this time. She fixed her eyes on the bottle of wine standing on the table. Red as blood. Would she end like this? A mess of cut apart body parts, covered with liquid red as wine? Trying to get her thoughts off the notion, she thought about the oddness of alcohol on the table. As far as she knew, it was forbidden for practicing Muslims to drink alcohol. She watched Laden for a few seconds. He was eating his food as if nothing had happened, as if it was a daily thing for him to kidnap someone and announce slicing them apart. Maybe it was.

                She weighed her options of just asking him about the alcohol, before downing the glass of wine to her right in one big gulp. She was ready to ask him, but her mind got stopped by the strand of hair falling into her face, and instead she switched her question to “why aren't you making me wear the hijab?” He looked at her in surprise. “Do you want to wear it?” he asked. His voice sounding doubtful and amused at the same time. “No! But...” She wanted to say something about his belief, about female P.O.W.s. That his brothers might make her wear it. But she decided not to, afraid it would insult him. He seemed to get the message anyways. “Many here are not happy that I am not making you, but I respect you, you are very strong. Like a man born in a woman’s body. I wish more of the women here would fight for their beliefs as you do. As long as they are the right ones. Which, yours, are sadly not. You lived your whole live without it. Frankly, your soul is beyond saving anyways”.

                She felt anger build up in herself at this. And before she even thought about it she started speaking. “Maybe I am a woman born in a woman's body! I am meant to be a woman, not a man, and I can do just as much as you can! If you wanted your women to be like me, then maybe you should raise them as equals that are able to be as confident, not as your humble servants! How can you say that you respect me, while you keep me as a prisoner to make my husband do something! I am not a… thing that you can use at your liking, I am just as much a person as you are! Stop using me for your business only because I am a woman!” She had stood up, the knife tightly held in her right hand, without even noticing it. Laden seemed to be entirely unimpressed by her outburst, just looking at her with his arms crossed over her chest, sighing slightly before standing up. “I respect you even when you are a woman. I chose to take you because I didn't want to traumatize your child. And because I needed someone close to the president, not because of your gender. Please put the knife away, you’ll just hurt yourself”. She looked at him in disbelief for a few seconds, and then pulled her hand back, throwing the knife at him with a scream of desperation.

                The knife stuck itself into the wall, 10 centimeters from Laden’s face. He turned his head watching it slightly out of the corner of his eye, than turning back to Hillary with a look of disbelief. “Like I said, Hillary, you’ll only hurt yourself” he coldly reminded her, in a voice lacking emotion. Hillary realized the importance of his words too late. She wouldn’t hurt herself directly handling a knife, he was talking about the consequences of her actions. Standing up from his seat, he yanked the knife out of the wall with one swift motion, walking over to the first lady with deliberate, slow steps. His hand grabbing he shoulder, roughly making her sit down again, “When you play with fire…” Laden’s voice boomed out next to her, causing her to flinch slightly, “you should expect to get burnt!” he rammed the knife down into the wooden table, inches from Hillary’s right hand. She pulled back in fear, but he grabbed her arms and held them in place, while moving his face close to hers, looking her square in the eyes. “Do I look like I’m joking to you? Or am I being serious?” Hillary cast her eyes towards the ground, all the fire and vehemence from her earlier speech swept away. “Answer me, woman!” Laden emphasized the last word, making a joke of her beliefs in equality. In a soft voice, he all but whispered, “Am. I. Being. Serious?” Hillary moved her chin up, looking him square in the eye. “Yes” she said, trying to hide the fear she felt in her gut, trying to appear as emotionless as him. “Yes, you’re being serious.”

                Laden took a step back, releasing her arms and finally giving her the space she craved. “Good. I see we’re The knife stuck itself into the wall, 10 centimeters from Laden’s face. He turned his head watching it slightly out of the corner of his eye, than turning back to Hillary with a look of disbelief. “Like I said, Hillary, you’ll only hurt yourself” he coldly reminded her, in a voice lacking emotion. Hillary realized the importance of his words too late. She wouldn’t hurt herself directly handling a knife, he was talking about the consequences of her actions. Standing up from his seat, he yanked the knife out of the wall with one swift motion, walking over to the first lady with deliberate, slow steps. “When you play with fire…” Laden’s voice boomed out next to her, causing her to flinch slightly, “you should expect to get burnt!” he rammed the knife down into the wooden table, inches from Hillary’s right hand. She pulled back in fear, but he grabbed her arms and held them in place, while moving his face close to hers, looking her square in the eyes. “Do I look like I’m joking to you? Or am I being serious?” Hillary cast her eyes towards the ground, all the fire and vehemence from her earlier speech swept away. “Answer me, woman!” Laden emphasized the last word, making a joke of her beliefs in equality. In a soft voice, he all but whispered, “Am. I. Being. Serious?” Hillary moved her chin up, looking him square in the eye. “Yes” she said, trying to hide the fear she felt in her gut, trying to appear as emotionless as him. “Yes, you’re being serious.”

 

                Laden took a step back, releasing her arms and finally giving her the space she craved. “Good. I see we’re back on the same page.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're baaaaaack!!! sorry for the late update, C. had to revise the end of the chapter from what might have turned into a desaster, and took years with it xDDD  
> L.

The sunlight woke her, streaming through the window in bright beams of energy that she certainly didn’t feel. She groaned, turning her head into her pillow, trying her hardest to ignore what felt and smelled so different from home. She realized that she was still wearing what she had put on last night, and that she must’ve fallen straight onto the bed after they had brought her back. But she could barely remember a thing. When she tried to concentrate, a throbbing headache threatened to split her skull open. Touching her face, Hillary still felt where the tears had slid down her cheeks, dried now, for who knows how long before sleep finally overtook her. She turned herself onto her back while she covered her eyes with one hand, staying like that for a few minutes before summoning the will to get up and walk to the bathroom.  
Cold water splashed across her face, shocking her awake. Hillary stared at herself wide-eyed in the mirror, blinking away droplets that clung to her eyelashes. She stayed like that for a while, before realizing she didn’t have much time. Laden had told her to not lock herself in the bathroom for too long, and yesterday night showed her that even when he claimed to respect her, he was not afraid of using more drastic measures. But still, she needed to make a plan to escape.  
She hadn’t planned on leaving the room for the rest of the day. She had wanted to lie on the mattress, pretending she was somewhere else, anywhere but there. At some point her stomach had gone to growling however, and a battle of wills began between Hillary and her body. Ultimately, her sense of hunger became greater than her exhaustion, and she got up to search for food. It would help her to get an idea of the place’s layout, she reasoned, and make escape that much more of a possibility. So she carefully opened the door, surprised to not find anyone in front of it, not a single guard. But after walking around for a few minutes, trying to find her way back to the dining room, she realized that it wouldn’t be necessary. There were armed men at every exit, others walking around on the floor, and all of them had at least one gun and a hateful stare to boot.  
She got lost in the hallways that looked so eerily similar, and what had taken barely ten minutes the prior night now took a half hour. Standing in the hallway from which she could clearly see the door to the dining room, doubt overcame her. Two guards stood baring the entrance to the room, with looks that shared a mix of hate and disgust at her. She remembered Laden’s words, that if she “asked nicely” perhaps they’d let her pass. But what if they didn’t? And Laden wasn’t anywhere in sight, Hillary had no idea what they might due to her. Was she trespassing? Should she wait for them to leave? Her brain told her to turn around, to just leave it be and wait until someone would help her. But her stomach had other ideas.   
So she slowly walked up to the guards, biting her lower lip when she saw their eyes following her every step, as if daring her to try something. She felt close to a nervous breakdown under their intense gazes. Looking the older one in the face she spoke, trying to mask the fear she felt. “Excuse me, can I go in?” He didn’t react. “Laden is not going to be happy if I’m starving to death!” she muttered to herself, turning away in disappointment. The guard stared at her unblinkingly before slowly stepping aside and letting her pass.   
She sighed in relief, quickly turning and entering before he changed his mind. The room was empty. There was no one sitting at the dining table, and also not a person in the kitchen. Making her way to the counter, she took in the sight of the flat breads, likely baked that morning judging from the heat emanating from the ovens. Eyeing it for a second before deciding it was acceptable, Hillary grabbed a slice and bit in, savoring the warm, chewy dough. She was so hungry she barely thought to chew before swallowing it down. She realized how foolish she must seem, hungrily tearing while standing around like an idiot. She found some butter next to the bread, and grabbed a knife from a cutlery stand, spreading it around, when she heard one of the doors open. Hillary looked up, surprised, and her blue eyes met with Laden’s dark ones. He smiled at her, saying good morning, but her mind was slow to register his voice. She felt like she was sinking into herself, all the sounds around her muffled in comparison. When he started towards her, probably to make small talk, she took off, muttering a quick greeting before quickly exiting the room.  
She let her feet carry her, out of the room, anywhere but there or where Laden might be. Seeing Laden walk in so casually just made the heaviness of her situation that much clearer. Before she had even realized where she was going, she stood in front of a large glass door, beyond it a beautiful garden. Like all the other rooms, a guard stood before her, and trying to talk to him just made Hillary’s voice catch in her throat. She realized she was about to cry. To her surprise the man just moved aside and she crashed through the door, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be rid of the buildings confining walls.   
The garden was larger than she had imagined, with colorful flowers blooming in between trees both large and small. Even they had bursts of color, changing in intensity with the sun’s bright light. She ran straight into the thicket, branches and bushes pulling at her clothes, desperate to hide from the world. Collapsing against one of the bigger trees, she pulled her knees up to her chest, lowering her head into her lap and crying openly.  
She didn’t know when it started raining, and she didn’t care. The rain helped to hide her voice, make her disappear into the small but alien world she had wandered into. It felt like nature was giving a show of sympathy, adapting the weather to fit her mood, so she sat underneath the leafy canopy, letting big drops spill onto her head without care. It didn’t taken long until her clothing and hair was soaked. She was freezing, but she refused to go back inside, not yet.  
From the time the light had faded and dusk had settled, it was likely close to midnight, she thought. But she didn’t care. So what if she stayed after her curfew? What could Laden do to her that she hadn’t already endured? So she kept sitting there, her tears mixing with the drops of the rain running down her face.  
Another hour passed, before she heard footsteps walking down the path she had torn through the garden. She put her head back onto her knees, curling into a ball in the hopes that whoever it was wouldn't see her, or if they did, leave her alone. But the footsteps came closer and closer, until the figure towered right over her. The familiar pattering of raindrops on an umbrella brought back memories of home, and she stifled a sob. She didn’t have to look up at this point to know who it was. Only one person would care for her wellbeing so much as to go looking for her. He bent down, and she felt a jacket being put around her shoulders. It was large, covering her whole body, warm and soft, and when he added a “you’ll catch a cold if you stay out here much longer” to his movements, his actions where so much like Bill’s that she burst anew into tears. He crouched down next to her, a comforting hand on her back, and this time she didn’t flinch away. She just sunk into the touch, imagining it was Bill that squeezed her shoulder, that it was Bill letting his fingers through her wet hair. It made her cry even more.   
She had let him help her up. Let him guide her back inside and let him wrap her shaking body in a towel, while he had her sit in a chair in the dining room, even let him start drying her hair off, until her thoughts slowly came back to her and she pushed his hands away, continuing his work on her hair herself.  
“You know, hypothermia’s not impossible, even in the summer. Much longer out there and you could’ve died” she looked up into his face, thinking she saw a trace of concern etched on his features. “I was going to call your husband now” her eyes widened at the mention of Bill. “I thought you might want to be there for it”. Hillary wanted to say something, but her breath got stuck in her throat. She sat and watched as Laden pulled out a phone, dialed a number, and waited. A few seconds later, someone picked up. And she heard him. Heard her husband’s voice on the other end, Bill’s voice. She sobbed out, wanting his warm smile, his soothing words, his safe embrace. And again she felt lost, enough to let Laden put an arm around her, lost enough even to feel comfort in his embrace. His hand squeezed her shoulder when he continued talking to bill, even as he spoke in a mocking tone. Telling him what he wanted, how he wouldn’t back down, even repeating the threat of cutting her into pieces. She gave her best not to listen to the conversation, to just concentrate on the sound of her husband’s voice. She heard both of them stop talking, and wanted to scream, beg Laden not to hang up, to keep talking, to give her the moment of solace. But she didn’t. She stayed silent.   
Hillary saw how Laden looked at her for a few seconds. His thumb hovered over the button that would end the call. Then he sighed, lifted the phone to his ear, and said “I think your wife wants to talk to you” She just stared at him in shock. Then took the phone from his outstretched hand. She held it to her ear as if her life depended on it. “Hillary?” she head her husband’s voice “Hill?” she just sobbed out in relief. “Oh my god” he said. “Oh my god, are you ok?” He was crying now too. Hillary got herself together long enough to say “yes...Yes I’m fine”. She laughed at the irony of her own words. She felt herself sliding off the chair and falling onto her knees, but she couldn’t care less. “I love you, I love you so much, you have to remember that, and tell Chelsea that I love her so much, and that the both of you mean the world to me, and…” She wanted to continue, but Bill’s voice cut her off. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. It’s not your time to say goodbye, you’ll come home to tell her that yourself”. She didn’t know if he was trying to convince her or himself. “Has anybody hurt you?” he asked. His voice was quiet, as if he was fearful of the answer. She waited for a second. “No. I mean.... Someone hit me, but I broke their nose in revenge”. She heard him laugh, a desperate, broken laugh, equal parts happiness and desperation. 

Laden crouched down next to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. He tore her away from the illusion that she had created for that brief moment, his look telling her time was over. “Bill? I.... I have to go”. The other line went silent for a moment. “I love you” she said and Bill sobbed an “I love you too, more than anything” back. Laden took the phone from her, gently untangling her fingers from it. She stared at him as he turned it off and tucked it back in one of his pockets. Hillary felt her lower lip trembling and didn’t even try to hold the tears. She slowly let her head lean against Laden’s chest and started crying. He gently put one hand on the back of her head and the other one at her back, saying soothing words while she cried. She found his embrace oddly comforting, reminded of how her father had hugged her when she was younger, and let herself sink a little more into his arms. “I just want to go home. Please, I just want to see my daughter. She needs her mother”. He held her tighter at that, an apology in calming words now.   
They sat like this for half an hour before she had calmed down from sobbing to crying silently. “We should get you back to your room”, he said before getting up and holding his hand out to her. This time she took it, letting him pull her off the ground. She felt more comfortable going around the big house with him. He seemed to know exactly where he had to go, and when he was with her, none of the guards would dare to treat her badly. Once they were in her room, he guided her over to the bed, gently pushing her to sit on the edge. “Sleep. Tomorrow things will get better” he said, taking her shoulders and helping her roll over onto her side. Her eyes almost immediately closed when she touched the bed. He stayed like that, looking at her for a few seconds before quietly leaving the room. Hillary opened her eyes when the door clicked, knowing she was now alone, safe to let her tears fall unnoticed. In this moment she missed her family more than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it!!!  
> L.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, sorry for not updating in such a long time. C. just started with college and I was an exchange student to the US and it took some time come back and settle into the german culture again :) I hope you´re still reading this, we´ll try to update more frequently, now that we´re both settled in.  
> L.

It had been three weeks since she arrived at the house. Three weeks of constant stress and fear. Three weeks of long dinners with Bin Laden. Three weeks of talking to him like it was the most usual thing in the world. Three weeks of spending her days lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling. Making it seem like she was just lost in thoughts, while she was secretly planning her escape. Drawing maps of the house, remembering them, and then burning them so that nobody would find out what she was planning.  
Her alarm clock beeped. It was time for dinner. Slowly she got herself up from the bed, and made her way to the dining room. She didn’t even bother looking at the guards anymore. She had gotten used to their hateful stares in the last weeks. Hillary stopped right in front of the door, taking a deep breath, putting on the most realistic smile her face could muster. She had gotten quite good at faking happiness through months of campaigning and it had helped her a lot as of late, where it had been essential to make Bin Laden think that she was happy. The happier she looked, the less he felt the urge to spend time with her. The more time alone, the more she could think of a plan.  
She pushed the doors to the dining hall open and walked towards the table. “Good evening” she said in the sweetest voice she could, while she sat and smiled at her kidnapper warmly. “Good evening Hillary” he replied in the same tone. “Enjoy your meal”. She just smiled at him another time before starting to eat. It was ironic, she thought, the two of them, trying to manipulate each other into forming some sort of trust. Only that for her, his trust was vital. The only thing keeping her alive.  
“How was your day?”, she asked him. “Not very exciting. Yours?” he answered. It was an unspoken agreement between them that he wouldn’t tell her if he had been working on things for al Qaeda and that she wouldn’t ask. “Same. Nothing special happened”. She said the same thing every night. She asked herself why he even cared anymore.  
He had finished eating and gotten up. Stepping behind her, he rested his hands on her shoulders. She felt her breath getting stuck in her lungs when her invaded her personal space like he had done so many times before. She put her fork down. Waited for him to start speaking.  
“Your husband… is giving me a very hard time” he said while starting to play with some of her hair. She had realized how much he seemed to like touching it. She hated it. Hated how he felt like he had the right to touch her. As if he had the right to invade her personal space like this. But she said nothing. Willed herself not to. Bin Laden was not easy to upset, but once he was angry he was menacing and violent. Hillary could still remember vividly how he had grabbed her shoulders and smashed her into a wall when she didn’t follow his orders for days, until she had softly told him that she’d do what he asked for. There were still bruises on her back, and one of her stitches had ripped. Since that evening the pain was even worse than it had already been before. Since then she had learned to be more careful around him.  
Bin Laden’s voice ripped her out of her thoughts “He is not giving me what I’m asking him for. Now he’s trying to tell me that he doesn’t have the codes anymore, and that the decision is not his to make”. His grip on her shoulder tightened and she could just barely suppress a wince of agony when his fingers dug into it. “they wouldn’t let him have the codes when you hold such…… leverage on him” she said. “Well”, he replied, while letting go of her and pulling his chair around the table to sit closer to her, “if he is not in power anymore, his vice is. Al Gore wouldn’t let you die, especially not in such horrible ways… I heard you two are pretty good friends?” His tone was mocking, and her expression already told him that he had won this argument. “They won’t do it. Please, you have to understand, they’re looking at the bigger picture. They would never give you the codes. They’re not going to sacrifice millions of lives for mine, and I wouldn’t want them to.” She had told him the same thing hundreds of times already. Hoping that he would understand. But he didn’t seem to care. Bin Laden just got up smiling, and firing over his shoulder, he said “You should hope that they change that attitude towards my deal”, before leaving the room.  
Staring at her now cold food, she sat in the chair. Tonight, was the night. She had waited for America to save her for three weeks now. It was time she took matters into her own hands. Tonight, she would put her plan into action.

Another bang. Shouts resounded from the hallway as Hillary’s fingers danced over the keyboard. Her movements grew more and more frantic as she desperately tried to put her plan to contact the US though. The banging increased in intensity, and Hillary’s mind played tricks on her, imagining what tools they had mustered to bring down the thick metal door. She had sneaked out if her room in the night. Went past the red tape and had almost been caught twice before she found a room with a computer inside that made communication to the outside world possible. Finishing up her work she exited out of the many screens she had brought up in a foolhardy attempt to cover her tracks. With any luck Laden wouldn’t realize what she had done.  
The banging outside stopped. As if simply thinking his name could make him appear out of thin air, his seedy voice oozed over the sound of Hillary’s fingers, as if from right behind her. She turned around to see nothing but thin air, realizing it was from the many intercoms placed within the room. “Hillary, why do you still try to resist? Can’t you see the futility? There’s no hope for you anymore”. Hillary ignored his words, focusing on the screen in front of her. Her grim silence served as a catalyst for Laden’s next sentence. “Hillary, if you don’t open this door, we’ll have to force it open. You wouldn’t want that…not with how…loud our methods are”.  
His voice made her pause. Her mind was churning with thoughts, reactions, ways to respond, but nothing could make her weak replies give off the sense of courage or strength she wanted. She was left in silence yet again, determined to finish her mission and meet the grim fate that awaited her. Just as she finished her work, she heard Laden giving an order to someone in the background, likely to someone behind him. Two simple words. “Do it”.  
The door to the control room blew off its hinges, flying several yards backwards before slamming into the opposite wall. If Hillary hadn’t leapt from her seat a moment before her body would have been crushed. She remained where she was as smoke billowed through the opening, coughing in reaction to the lack of oxygen. Still wincing from her leap onto the bare tiled floor, she attempted to clamber to her feet, only to have a hand reach out through the fog and grab hold of her neck. Veiny, long fingers, hairy arm bulging with concealed muscle – Hillary noticed all this in the blink of an eye. Her fists weakly batted at the sides of the arm as it gripped her neck, pulling her forward through the smoke and stumbling back onto her knees. She looked up to see Laden’s face staring down at her own.  
Panting, she raised her chin to meet his gaze, hands pushing herself up into a sitting position. Her only thought was how emotionless he looked, until his backhand came out of nowhere and sent her head reeling.  
She stayed on all fours, blinking stars out of her eyes, trying to focus. Laden’s voice sounded from all around her as she attempted to keep herself from feinting.  
“Hillary…you’ve really gone and done it this time”. His voice still had that same emotionless quality, mercilessly cutting through the fog of her thoughts. “I tried my best…but it’s better this way. For both of us”. A swift kick, this time into her ribs, made her double over in pain. She understood that without the help of the painkillers, she probably would have fainted by now. Wished she had. That he’d just let her die. But that’d be much too kind, she thought to herself bitterly. Staring ahead, she dragged herself away, putting all her weight onto one leg and slowly pushing it up as Laden stalked over to her.  
“SPEAK WOMAN!!” he suddenly roared, grabbing her collar and dragging her to her feet. “Enough of your dogged silence. Beg! Plead! Cry! It’s the only thing you’re useful for! With that he slammed her back against the wall of the corridor, holding her only by her neck with both hands. His eyes turned into slits of pure hate as they raked over her body.  
“Do you think I wouldn’t notice?” he whispered, closing the distance between them, until his hot breath was right upon her face. “You’re just a pawn, Hillary. You were and always will be. The First Lady of the United States” he sneered, and sarcasm dripped from his voice. “Your title gives you more power than you ever had a right to”. He tightened his grip on her throat until she gagged, gasping for air, while he returned his face to its previous lack of sympathy. Her face started to purple as he continued his monotone speech.  
“This was your last chance to save yourself. Against my better judgement I made rules, specifically for you. I let you live in a fantasy dream, where you could stay in luxury and watch the world burn around you”. Laden’s lip turned upwards in disgust, as if he was starting at a particularly nasty cockroach. Her hands batted at his fingers, scratching them open as well as her own neck in a desperate attempt to breathe again. “But you wasted your chance”. With that Laden released her from the wall, letting her fall to the floor gasping for breath, her purpled face breathing in lungfuls of oxygen.  
“Take her to the dungeon. Jail her and have her watched constantly. This won’t happen again”.  
Hands grabbed her limp arms, dragging her across the floor, paying no head to her comfort. They moved through another hallway, Hillary’s last glimpse of Laden being taking out a handkerchief and wiping his hands while staring at her diminishing figure.

 

She could feel strong hands gripping at her arms. Dragging her further down the corridor. She tried to get to her feet, to at least walk by herself, but they were walking too fast, were holding her arms too low, and she was too exhausted to mutter the strength to fight against their grip.  
She felt how one of her captors let her go while the other one had yanked her up by her left arm, crushing her body against the wall. A soft whimper escaped her lips when she felt his arm against her bruised neck. The small sound burned her throat like fire. ‘Suffocation trauma’. The word popped up in her head. She had read about it. Never did she have the thought she’d live through it herself. The sound on a metal door being opened was the guard’s sign to take his arm away from her throat, only to grasp her hair and throw her forward. She cried out when her battered body hit the ground, only to gasp for air at the pain it caused.  
She turned to face the men. Crawling backwards until her back hit the wall when she saw one of them walking towards her. She flinched back violently as the cells metal door crashed close while the guards’ laughter filled the stony hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it! leave a comment to let us know where we can improve!  
> L.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.... It took us sooooo long again.   
> Please enjoy!

Footsteps echoed down the narrow corridor, filling the tense silence in the air. Laden strode out in front, with Hillary’s arm firmly in his grip, her other being held by a masked guard. Her head was lowered with her eyes downcast, dirt and soot smudging her face, while her bedraggled hair, which had grown since the time she had stayed there, now went past her shoulders. She ignored the chaotic jumble of thoughts in her head, telling her to panic, to rip off her blindfold, to think about a plan. She instead focused on the brightness of the light as it shined through her cover, how she would likely never see this place again, and what her chances of living in the next 24 hours would be. Unbeknownst to her they passed by the garden and kitchen, turning left and forever leaving the bedrooms and private chambers. She kept her gaze straight ahead, focusing on not tripping her feet in the arms of the men around her.  
They halted, and Hillary heard Laden, as if from a far-off place, telling his men to wait. He moved, still dragging her by the arm, away and back the way they had come. Soon enough the sounds of birds chirping, the feeling of lush grass underfoot, and the soft touch of overhanging leaves made Hillary realize where they were. Laden saw the question written on her face, and answered her before she could muster the strength to speak. “This place…it calms you. At least, in the past it has”. His voice was even, low, almost endearing, and Hillary was inwardly surprised at his attempt of consideration for her. But not fooled.  
“Why are we here, Laden?” she asked, unable to keep her tone from sounding accusatory. “To talk about where we’re headed, and what will happen when we get there”. Again, he was being open, but in a way that made Hillary entirely on edge. She hated having the blindfold on, robbing her of her vision and having to rely entirely on her ears to hear where Laden’s voice was coming from. The birds made that more difficult, as well as the noiseless grass underneath. As far as she could tell, he was still in front of her. “Ok” she answered, since he remained silent. “Where would that be?”  
“It’s not very far away, only an hour or so. Of course, I can’t tell you the actual location. But its larger than this, much larger, and has, in my opinion, more…strict security measures”. Hillary could only guess what he meant by that, but it was obvious he was being deliberately secretive. “There are some people there that we have to see. They will be very eager to meet you”. Hillary could only wonder who he meant. Likely it was more associates of his, either from other terrorist organizations or his own. The voice drifted, off to Hillary’s right, while a soft caress on her left arm caused her to freeze. She realized it was only a tree leaf, and inwardly cursed herself for being so paranoid. “But first…we’ll have to drive there”. Hillary jumped, as Laden’s voice came from right behind her, close to her left ear. “My left…but I just heard him on my right…” Hillary thought to herself. A sudden realization caused her to swivel her head towards her left arm. “So that wasn’t a tree leaf” she thought.  
“And we can’t drive there…” Laden continued to breathe into Hillary’s ear, “with you awake”. A split-second later his arm grabbed her waist, locking her against his chest. She struggled, pushing against his body, kicking him with her legs, but in her weakened state she knew it was in vain. A strong chemical smell pervaded the air, and before Hillary could guess what it was, a damp cloth was shoved against her mouth. Her arms automatically went to his arm, trying to pull the fabric away from her face but he was stronger then her. She dared not to open her mouth, for fear that whatever was soaked into that cloth could kill her if she accidentally ingested it. But she couldn’t stop herself from breathing in its fumes. It caused her head to ache, and soon enough she felt her muscles loosen against Laden’s grip. Her arms falling limp to her sides, despite her mind screaming at them to move and her legs gradually lost the strength to support her. A few minutes passed, her body wouldn’t listen to her anymore, merely reduced to a limp doll, and also her mind was slowly getting weaker in its defenses. It was a uniquely disturbing scene, of Bin Laden holding her almost tenderly, while the chemicals took their effect, watching her as the last vestiges of resistance left her mind. Ever so softly he let his fingers trail down her face, until they softly traced the blue bruises that his very own hands had left on her throat just the night before. He smiled down at her. A sardonic smile before taking off the blindfold. She wouldn’t need it anymore. He hoisted her up, carrying her back the way they had come.  
\--  
\--  
She was tired. So tired. Hillary just wanted to go back to sleep. Into the beautiful dreamland where she didn’t have to worry about anything, but something told her that she had to stay awake. She wanted to think but the headache that threatened to split her head in two was making it so hard. She was laying on something warm. Somebody’s legs she realized after a few seconds. She felt the heat radiating from the person body and a hand that was playing with strands of her hair, strangely calming. And for a split second she was able to believe that it had all been a bad dream. The scene was so familiar. Her laying on bills lap, sleeping after an exhausting day while he played with golden tresses of her hair. She felt safe, protected. Didn’t want to open her eyes, fearing the agonizing truth but she knew she couldn’t stay asleep forever. when she did open her eyes she was disappointed by Bin Ladens face. He talked to someone in Arabic. If shed been more awake she probably would have questioned what he was talking about, but right now she just couldn’t get herself to care. Her thoughts worked slowly not quite able to point at what exactly made her so bothered by the situation but something behind the white veil that seemed to cloud her thoughts told her that she wasn’t supposed to be there. She felt her own hand swatting at his chest when her instinct, telling her to get away from him, took over. The back of her hand connecting with his chest while her eyes wandered around the car not really taking anything in. Not really able to process anything she was seeing, trying to make sense of the situation. She felt his hand grabbing her jaw making her look at him. Cold eyes locking with her dull and unfocused ones. “well what are you trying to do down there darling” he said while he smiled down at her mockingly. She frowned when she heard his words but couldn’t quite make sense of them. Hillary tried to raise both her hands against his chest to push him away but before she had even made it half way Bin Laden had grabbed her arms and hoisted her upper body up from his lap, seating her into the car seat next to him. The motion sent a wave if dizziness and exhaustion through her body and she felt her eyes fall close again. Desperately trying to cling to wakefulness, his voice telling her not to fight it was the last thing she heard before unconsciousness engulfed her again and she slumped back, falling deep, so deep into darkness soft embrace  
Bump. Her head knocked against someone’s shoulder. She thought about opening her eyes, but was so tired she decided to ignore it. The air was warm, and a constant drone let her slip easily back into her dreams. But then again. Bump. Hillary groaned, annoyed at the uneven terrain causing the car to bounce. ‘Wait…a car?!”. Her eyes flew open, immediately realizing the absence of the blindfold now that her thoughts where clearer. Her muscles refused to budge, and Hillary wondered how she was still under the effect of the drug. She strained her eyes to her right, but couldn’t see what she was leaning against. She was in the backseat of a car, lined with black leather and impressive upholstery. Obviously only for someone important. ‘Someone…like Bin Laden’. At the same time that she had that thought, the wall she was leaning against shifted. Cold dread overtook her once she understood it wasn’t a wall, but a person. And she would bet her life on who she was leaning against the shoulder of. Mixed feelings of fear and disgust overtook Hillary, and she found the strength to shift her muscles enough to move her head. Bin Laden’s voice sounded out, confirming her thoughts.  
“Ah, so you’re awake. Excellent timing, we are only 10 minutes out”. Hillary could tell he was grinning while he spoke, and she felt repulsion swell up inside her at his arrogance, his amusement at her situation. She frowned, trying to get the headache to subside, while she put one hand against the seat and the other one against his shoulder, pushing herself up into a more sitting position. She just wanted to reply to his comment, but then his next words put the fear back in her heart. “Don’t worry Mrs. Clinton…I think you’ll find your new home quite…eternal”. His laughter peeled out of the car, whipped away by the strong gusts of wind blowing on the hot day.

\--  
\--

She gasped when the car suddenly jerked to a stop throwing her forward into her seatbelt. If she hadn’t raised her hands against the seat in front of her she probably would have smashed her head right into the seat. Bin Ladens voice boomed out from her left. He shouted something at the driver in a language she didn’t understand, before he turned to her. He grabbed her face, making her look at him for a few seconds. She saw his gaze checking her through, before he said a short “You're fine” and let her go again. It wasn’t a question or a statement, simply an order. He had gotten out of the car, walked around it and opened the door on her side. He had waited until she unbuckled her seatbelt before he grabbed her arm and dragged her out if the car. He had let go if her once she stood outside of the vehicle “Welcome to your new home darling” He said while he stood behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders “I hope you like it”. Hillary looked up and all her hopes oft ever getting found vanished into thin air. The building was Carved right into a mountain, barely recognizable if you didn’t know it was there. Bin Laden must have seen how her face derailed, horror and despair taking over the strong façade she had so carefully build up during the last few minutes of the car ride, because he pulled her closer against his chest, leaning down until she could hear his voice next to her ear “come on, its not that bad” he laughed. He laughed at her. Laughed at seeing her afraid. It made her angry. She pushed him away from her, putting a few steps between her and Bin Laden. He didn’t even react to it, just grabbed her arm again, pulling her through one if the doors.

\---  
\----  
\---

The building was huge. A big complex of corridors and rooms, making it impossible for her to remember where they came from and where they went.

When they finally came to a halt, they stood in front if a door. It was not closed completely and she could hear people talking inside. Hillary looked up at Bin Laden, insecure if what they where doing here, but he didn’t even cast a glance at her.  
Before she could say anything he pushed the door open, revealing a room with a long table inside. Only 3 people where sitting at it looking at them with a surprised look. None of their faces could ever match Hillary’s surprise in the moment she realized whom she was looking at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to day that we'll try to update more frequently, but I've said that before and see where it has gotten us xD well I hope you liked it and we will really try to hurry up more xD


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